


The Normal One

by FourEyedGentleman



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, TARANTINO Quentin - Works
Genre: Abuse, Age Difference, Alcohol, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bloodplay, Canon-Typical Violence, Coercion, Corruption, Dominance, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Lima Syndrome, Psychological Trauma, Realistic, Sadism, Sensuality, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Tension, Sexual Violence, Smut, Stockholm Syndrome, Survivor Guilt, Triggers, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Virginity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:38:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 55,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2416940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourEyedGentleman/pseuds/FourEyedGentleman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An extension of Seth's destructive lifestyle, Kate braves the intensity of womanhood alone. Seth grows increasingly cruel and unpredictable; unsure of what role to play in her life; be it: father, brother, teacher or captor. The line between hostage and ally blurs, as Seth tries to distance himself from the temptation of becoming a deviant Richie would have been proud to smirk at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Down in Mexico

Like most books that should be shelved after the story has been told, Kate Fuller was not so quick to seal the bindings and place her story somewhere in the back of her mind like all her other memories. After all, she had only just begun to spread the pages of a new chapter. The words of her story had not yet been lost to circumstance; any more than the unforeseeable chain of events which lead two brothers, selfishly dedicated to one another's patrimonial strides for more, had left her completely alone.

Kate had been a complacent girl; oblivious, naïve to a fault but always grateful. She had family and faith; she had love. Even still, in an instant, she had lost more than she ever even knew she had. She blinked and opened her eyes to nothingness. A life of privilege, wide-eyes, family and love: stolen from her. Carnage trailed behind her like a chain binding her to every horrific moment she'd ever endured. She would never be free. The stains of yesterdays blended together in a fog, chasing in long shadows; fear and regret hot on her tail.

Time passed and the emptiness filled with phantom aches Kate could no longer satiate with prayer. Her existence no longer revolved around what she had lost, but rather: what had remained. She had the scars: reasons to lie to strangers about how such a delicate girl could acquire them. She had the nightmares: an excuse to stay up late and greet the sun; and no one to tell her it wasn't okay, or passed her bedtime. Most of the wounds had healed though the evidence of some would never vanish. A nervous habit riddled in self-hatred kept her tearing at the gashes, picking out the homemade stitches and clawing at raised scabs until they sank into the raised pitted, defacement of new scars.

Kate tried crawling out of her skin, bleeding beneath her clothes, hoping to somehow vacate her being. No one would see, or notice, and if they did: no one would say anything. She knew this because she knew no one cared. No one cared about the lies her father told about her mother. No one cared about the bullies who tormented her brother. No one cared about her family being taken hostage and disappearing entirely. And no one cared when she was the last of them left standing: battered, bloody and exposed. The feeling of filth and never being able to scrub the blood, guts and gore from her own flesh made her panic, sick and ashamed; like everyone could see the gore but she no longer lived in a world where anyone cared enough to wipe the blood from a little girl's brow. That was her world now: filth and survivor's guilt.

Despite it all, Kate didn't pity herself; though it took a great deal of time not to. Eventually, she came to realize it was fate. It was the hand she was dealt, for worse or worst. Blaming God, her father or the Goddamn Gecko brothers wouldn't change anything; even if that's all she wanted. She herself yearned to be different. She didn't see herself as sweet, homegrown "Katie-Cakes" anymore. She didn't have a Preacher to be a daughter too. She wasn't a playful sister, Mama's girl or the chaste girlfriend of a church-boy another life would have permitted her to marry. She'd never have been enough for her mother to live for. She'd never be strong enough to fix her family. She didn't have one anymore and the guilt of finding relief in that was her own dirty, little secret that ate at her from the inside out.

Kate was different, indeed; and in a sense, wanted to be known as such. She wasn't much older but she was wiser. She didn't know what tomorrow brought but understood the twists of fate that allowed her to breathe, after it had extinguished so many others, were all that kept her alive anymore anyway. Her ever-loving heart had become distorted, blackened and rotted from within her chest. There was no love left in her. She felt owed a punishment for a crime she couldn't put her finger on but knew she had committed all the same. Still, she counted the marks on her body. They were real. She endured the nightmares, because they too were real. The cheap motels, the pools that reeked of too much chlorine and burned her eyes under the hot Mexican sun, the desert sand caught in her hair: it was all real. The Massacre at the Titty Twister: that was all too real. There was no solace, no sound sleep or painless moment for Kate.

There was only Seth.


	2. Seth

Kate didn't know if she followed Seth or if he pulled her by a leash only he could see. She obeyed his orders, heeded his warnings, and never tried to leave. Truth be told, Kate didn't know if she was a hostage any more than if she was a welcomed guest. They left the Twister together, the sole survivors of the culebra massacre, out of vulnerability and impulse; though, Seth's own guilt likely played a larger role than either of them were willing to admit.

It didn't take long to realize that romanticizing the Gecko brothers wasn't realistic or even possible. Kate couldn't rewrite history because it was easier to swallow than the pill she was faced with every morning, in the moments before Seth woke and she retired to her daytime slumber. She'd watch the rise and fall of his bare chest and count his breaths as he slept. Some part of her hoped they'd stop; that the alcohol and self-medicating would finally do him in. On the nights he passed out in his jeans or suit, she'd see his revolver peeking out over the top of his belt. She'd visualized taking it and shooting him in the head, splattering his brains and trademark smirk across the walls but knew she didn't really have it in her to pull the trigger and trying would only lead to more trouble than it was worth. She knew this because she'd come close once.

A few weeks after their escape from the Titty Twister, Seth and Kate took shelter at a flophouse, where everything from the sheets to the carpet were soiled, stained and crusted over. Kate knew more than she let on but Seth wasn't willing to answer any uncomfortable questions. He covered filth with used pillow cases and clothes left behind by guests who'd stayed there either to die or fuck, or both. Seth stormed down to the front desk without warning, leaving Kate behind to listen to the chill-inducing boom of his fast-talking, voice, echoing in Spanglish. He returned with an armful of clean linens and towels and tossed them in irritation at Kate. She took his gesture as a sign of her newly-enforced and antiquated "womanly duties" to make the hole-in-the-wall look half-way decent.

The pair lived in solitude and silence. Seth gave her free roam of the motel room, the bathroom and any space in between but forbid she walk out the door or go near the windows. Seth had been on edge, as if waiting for someone, or something to kick in the door and tear them apart. He popped mystery pills to stay awake, and when they didn't work, his nose would bleed from snorting white powder off the coffee table he positioned across the room and in front of the chair he sat guard in. His hands would shake around his revolver pointed at the door, knees springing in place and nose sniffing smoky air on instinct. He stayed in the same place for days without eating or showering. When Kate moved or shuffled, he'd lift his gun at her, mutter obscenities uncharacteristic of his nature and accuse her of the many ways it was all her fault.

Not long after, Kate began fixing Seth drinks – strong ones. It made him dizzy, unfocused and twitchy but eventually, he'd fall asleep in his chair, soaked through his partially unbuttoned, white-collared shirt, with his own sweat and droplets of blood. No one came in the door or even knocked but Seth's paranoia had changed him.

Looking down at the table, bloody and drug-covered, Kate panicked. Slowly, and with no plan in mind, she reached for his revolver. Seth stirred, locking eyes with her. Kate quickly moved her hands to his shirt, pulling it off him one arm at a time. Neither of them spoke a word. The motel room's AC caused him to shiver and she grabbed a towel from the floor, covering his sweaty torso and drying him off.  
"Sorry, Lolita, but I'm no Richie." he croaked before pushing her to the ground. In an instant he sprung to his feet, tucking his gun down the front of his pants and stumbling to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Mortified and humiliated by his insinuation, Kate stood outside the bathroom door. She heard the shower begin run but waited to hear the changing patterns of water hit the shower floor before she was confident he had immersed himself in the cleansing downpour. Steam billowed under the door and collected at her feet as she quietly crept into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her so the cold air from the room wouldn't let Seth know someone had entered behind him. His bloody, sweat-soaked clothes gathered in a wet heap on the floor. She stepped over them carefully, seeing the revolver on the counter. The chrome fogged in the steam like the mirror and she worried it would slip from her grip if she wasn't careful.

Kate extended her hand out to grab the gun but Seth emerged from the steam of the shower, fuming, wet and naked. He gripped her wrist, twisting her fingers an inch from the gun. He pulled her arm behind her back and pinned her against the wall. She could feel the wetness of his body soak through her own clothes as he pressed against her with savage force.  
"You seem to have me at a bit of a disadvantage here, Princess." His breath was hot on her neck; stubble scraping against her silky cheek, flushing from the steam and closeness. "On the one hand, you made a pass at my piece. I can only assume, like any man would assume, that you're intention was to gun me down in this here shower, am I correct?" Kate squirmed under his grasp but didn't answer. He tightened his grip on her arm, pushing it higher behind her back. He smirked as she yelped in pain. "On the other hand, you seem to have quite an appetite for Geckos and hell, it's been a while…"

Seth shoved Kate from the wall to the sink. He slid her legs apart with help from the wet floor and she fell further forward, arched over the faucet. Seth slid his way between her legs, pinning both arms behind her back with one hand and lifting the back of her shirt with his revolver with the other. Kate struggled under his grasp, but even wet, she could not slip out of Seth's bruising claim. She cried stammering incoherent sentences until Seth pulled her face to his. "A little overdressed, don't you think?" His lower-half forcing Kate to jut her hips forward into the hard corners over the sink, evoking another cry of pain.

Seth let her arms go but before she could turn around and run, he pinned her once more against the wall, pushing himself against her in a slow grind Kate wasn't sure was real. "Listen to me, Sister Christian, and listen good. If at any time, I want this, I'll talk it." He spoke in a wicked voice that echoed Richie's tones and thrust against her suggestively. "I won't ask, I won't beg, I won't bargain. Can you feel how easy this is for me?" He whispered, resting his sweaty forehead on hers, forcing her to feel every firm inch of him. "I'll be the only confession worth sharing..."

Seth finally let her go, throwing her to the floor outside the bathroom. The bathroom door was wide-open, steam surrounding him like a demon melting through ice. Kate glared through tears at him: all of him. To the wild look in his eyes that told her he was serious to his tan, naked body, glistening with sweat and water; all the way down to what he'd threatened her with and just how visibly easy it would be for him to destroy her. He slammed the door once more, locking it behind him this time.

Though months had passed and it had never been addressed, it wasn't up for debate who was in charge. Kate, grew unsure of how serious his threats were though never tested him again and never thought twice about going near his weapons: any of them.

There was no riding off into the sunset with a man like Seth Gecko. Tattooed from wrist to neck, he was dominant, brooding and just as calculating and dangerous as his brother. From start to finish, he'd been a whirling, two-sided coin that never seemed to land on any reliable side. Hotheaded, menacing, merciless: finding safety in Seth's passenger seat was as well thought out a plan as chaining herself naked to Richie after taking a bath in Jolt.

Survival had become a relative term. And although the months went on with little to no brutality, Kate and Seth learned to coexist with relative civility. He generally kept his hands to himself, as she kept her thoughts to herself. It became easier to watch life cool as time passed. Kate had less fear of Seth blowing her brains out on one of their long drives out of town and ditching her body in the desert; and he seemed more comfortable with the fact that she wasn't going to turn him in for anything that had happened or kill him in his sleep. Still, she kept her eyes peeled at night as he did during the day. This was as close to normalcy as life would get for either of them.


	3. Richie Approved

The bloodshed had ceased, there were no explosive exists stitched together for the sake of blazing glory or headlines. Seth’s cavalier, death-wish antics came and went, usually when he was drunk, but never surpassed that of Richie’s. Kate often wondered if this bothered him. That Seth, despite his efforts, would never be as flagrantly insane with his life or anyone else’s, as his brother was. Seth knew too well the struggle of being a survivor. Going quietly was not in his arsenal and he’d fight tooth and nail to survive but he’d never part with his dignity and seeking unnecessary trouble threatened both. Richie was as reckless as he was shameless, and the payoff was usually greater. The infamy was a concrete testimony that made Seth look like a sidekick. The reward for his capture was even larger than Seth’s but instead of upping the ante, Seth was designed to play it cool.

Seth was a former realist who could once use his word as currency but had quickly deteriorated into a human gamble. He was worth his weight in gold but only on the off chance of success and he didn’t chase the score like he once did. There was no thrill in solo acts. This change of pace made him aggressive and sinister. Seth grew stir-crazy and increasingly paranoid. The inactivity had him chasing ghosts in his mind. Reduced to the husk of his former self, Seth could no longer call it like he saw it. Honesty was masked with irony, pain or amusement and communication was as enjoyable and effortless as pulling teeth. 

The Seth that Kate had come to know during their mutual and voluntary imprisonment, was a daily reminder of her family’s slaughter and how Kate had been reduced to nothing more than a souvenir to remind a defeated man of his last adventure with his gone brother. Seth’s powers of persuasion were ruthless and self-interested, reeling with cryptic ulterior motives and riddles. He went so far as to foster a subtle seduction, promising Kate she wouldn’t ever be alone with him. Kate soon found herself alone more than ever. Lost to the purgatory of watching the oldest Gecko’s lies pile up around her – a testament to her childlike gullibility and the silver-tongued charms that stimulated her longing to be treated like the adult she felt inside. Seth’s hustle had been on point and before long, it was no surprise he had been capable of walking her family to their death. He could bluff his way out of Hell.

Seth’s snarky, cool, fast-talking, rebelliousness once piqued a certain interest in Kate but she’d never admit it, just as Seth would never admit it was all for show or that he resented being the trimmings of his brother’s mad-genius and explicit, sadistic urges. The media moaned with satisfaction, salivating over the gruesome and sensational depravities that stained the desert red and littered the roads with the mutilated, raped and slaughtered victims of the Gecko brother’s topsy-turvy, blood-spattered crime spree. 

Seth was one half of the notorious brother team of precision heist-men. Their names would forever be associated with their crimes but getting away with them all would make them legends. Seth once pined for the acclaim. Aroused by the romantic playback of his part in the jail breaking, death dealing, bank robbing duo who vanished into the pages of history. The greatest score of all being the infinite revolving door of jailbait Lolitas, who would drive themselves wet, constructing fantasies on the falsity of how misunderstood the Gecko brothers must have been. After all, the pretty ones are always misunderstood. Seth knew the scenario all too well. The crafted wiles he’d perfected over a lifetime of being the artful dodger had shed light on the ease in which wide-eyed, bubble gum popping, curfew-breakers in plunging sundresses would become his concubines. The prowl had lost its appeal with its simplicity. Kate, on the other hand, was a challenge.

Seth poured tequila down his throat, hissing as he exhaled a fiery lungful of alcohol-sting. Staring at the all too familiar walls, he listened to the music that escaped Kate’s headphones. She spent her days finding new ways to avoid him and he knew she was running low on creativity. He’d struggled to find normalcy with the teenager. There was no safe approach, as he was no longer a safe man. Though he was no violator like Richie, he knew that instilling fear in her was the only way to truly keep her safe. At least, that’s how he rectified his the guilt; disgraced in the overcast of his drug-addled, booze-fueled, belligerence. He’d regretted taking Kate deeper into the abyss of the Mexican underworld but couldn’t decide if a lifetime of wondering about her fate would have been easier. It was a coin toss, a waiting game and at its core, an excuse not to be alone.

Seth had been unable to process the events of the Titty Twister. He’d wake in a pool of cold sweat, tangled in bed sheets he dreamt were the restraints of bloodthirsty Hell beasts. His panic would escape his body in labored gasps, irregular breaths and muffled groans that bolted sheer terror to the back of his throat. He drank to sleep and dull the memories but the depressant paralyzed him in thick slumbers. The Sandman’s mischief was a torturous, cruel joke. The nighttime savored its refusal to relinquish Seth from sleep. The subjugation that barred him from his waking life, already a walking nightmare, did little to inspire his sobriety. It was after these episodic horrors that he’d deprive himself of sleep entirely. He relied on drugs and medications to stimulate his consciousness for a handful of uneasy days but the brawls against exhaustion were ugly – always leading to a violent, thrashing defeat that forced Kate to barricade herself in the bathroom and hide from his derangement. 

Seth could feel himself losing grip on reality, as he spiraled deeper into the embrace of the white powder that made his nose bleed and gums go numb. He missed his brother and the safety Richie somehow always seemed to supply. Kate was a distressed damsel who’s happily-ever-after had been thwarted by the brothers. Her fear of Seth’s erratic behavior prevented her from extending a compassionate hand like she had been able to at the start of their secret, little life together. Seth did not trust her any more than he suspected she trusted him. Her composure stood too calm against the calamity, despite her losses being greater and experiences more traumatic. 

Kate was a resilient, young creature whose innocence had been shattered by the harsh realities they had faced side by side. Even still, it was Seth that could not cope. He was no longer the confident, smooth-operator he’d made a living pretending to be. He was a head case that clawed at his skin till it bled when he got lost in the narrow labyrinth of his mind’s malicious carnival. The recurring thoughts and images plastered behind his eyelids deemed peace a luxury the fugitive could not afford. He survived the palpitations of anxiety and panic attacks only to decline into a depressed state that worsened his addictions and twisted in his gut until he vomited what little food he’d remembered to eat.

Seth grew increasingly more envious of the stillness Kate had achieved so soon after the ordeal. He was an experienced fiend, capable of unspeakable brutalities, yet she was the one who seemed unfazed by panic or worry. In his heart he knew that Kate had done nothing wrong and that he was responsible for any hardships in her current life. He knew her faith guided her through the sorrow and fear; and if anyone deserved a moment of tranquility, it was Kate. Still, he wondered how long she would remain the beacon of hope and virtue she was now. Her fledgling naivety was something for the books, going so far as to grant Seth unconditional forgiveness after her family was slaughtered and even forming what resembled a “Stockholm attraction” to Richie.

Seth’s mind grew foggier with each spiteful swig. He eyed Kate from his chair sternly. She lay on her stomach, her knees bent, allowing her feet to cradle one another in the air. Her body sank into the cheap mattress and it squeaked as she absentmindedly swung her ankles back and forth above her back. Seth couldn’t make out the music she was tuned into but became irritated at her bold attempt to obstruct his interactions. 

It wasn’t often that he became self-righteous about taking her further into the pit of his volatile existence, but when more liquor ran through his veins than blood and his fidgeting intensified under the command of street-cut narcotics, he could convince himself of just about anything. He particularly favored the lie that Kate was indebted to him. He was her primary guardian, despite treating her more as a stray taken in out of reluctance. Seth could not grasp her coldness and lack of appreciation for everything he had done for her, the risks he had taken to ensure she’d have someone to look after her, guide and befriend her. She was not his responsibility, yet he maintained momentum in an uphill battle that was The Complexity of the Teenage Girl. Sharing a living space designed for one was hard enough without the lack of respect and gratitude.

Seth’s face grew red and his chest filled with a giddiness that nearly made him burst with laughter. He knew he was being irrational and so remained silent; growing ever impassioned with every minute his body metabolized the poisons. He felt his restlessness enhance, as his eyes canvassed the creamy, porcelain glow of Kate’s legs that swung smooth and careless in a rhythm she perfected. Her tranquil concentration was overwhelming and the room was too quiet to only play the hum of her music. 

Seth considered the threats he had made in the past. They were hazy, scattered in pieces across his memory. He knew he had been wrong, that his threats were empty and that he was not his brother. Still, an unapologetic irrationality began to wonder if he could ever be like Richie. Seth admired him as much as he had admired Seth but both brothers flourished in areas the other did not. This made them the compatible crooks they had always been. They could read each other through their own strengths and weaknesses. Seth toyed with the deviant, savagery nestled in a dirty mind, and licensed by the likelihood that Richie had already plowed the same imaginary fields.

Seth felt his body flush as he watched Kate. She twirled a lock of hair around her delicate fingers and rested the capped Sharpie on her bottom lip, gripping it with her teeth when she needed a free hand to turn the pages. The alcohol had Seth good and loaded and the mixture of uppers and downers fried his sensibilities and urged him to indulge in the exploration of every wicked depth of the mind, decent men close off. Seth knew this because he had once been a decent man. He had been grounded and stable. He was going to get rich and fat and die in the arms of a beautiful woman.

The separation from Richie devastated Seth, as the abandonment was a betrayal that blindsided him with loss and regret. Seth had always been programmed to complete the objective and make the score but he had to work tirelessly to ensure he had each job by the balls. Richie on the other hand, was a prodigy and memorization, and tactical reasoning and application, came like breathing to him. He had always been able to see more, farther, with better clarity and on a Meta scale. The responsibility that came with Richie’s mind was one Seth could never be prepared to behold. Though he never doubted his own intelligence, his gifts were more social proficiencies and cunning. It allowed him to perpetuate his con through life but he’d often wondered what it would be like to live in Richie’s shoes. To appreciate the bizarre and allow square honesty to risk favorable outcomes for jail time and satiate lusts driven by discernable madness under the revelation that they nourished his brilliance.

Kate tongued the pen from side to side in her mouth, still on her stomach, she propped herself up on her elbows to hold the magazine in front of her face. She flipped through her iPod and settled on a song that Seth could slowly begin to recognize. It was a classic. The old song throttled his grasp on reality and he felt out of place, as if her were being watched on screen. His ears filled with a melody that was classic during his own youth. There seemed a very real possibility that Kate somehow knew this triviality and was playing tricks on him. Perhaps her interest in Richie stemmed from her own sociopathy. Seth had dealt with crazy women before but Kate was such a peculiar being. She disarmed him with her timid, gentle nature and tenderness but perplexed him with a defiance that he could not control. She would not ever regard Seth as more than he was and this made his posture stiffen. Seth decided that if Kate stooped to playing mind games with him, he was going to mind her games as foreplay.

Seth’s ego was wounded by the paranoia-induced mistrust in Kate. He began to suppose she hadn’t left him yet because perhaps there was a part of her that craved the tacit threat of ravishment. Richie was never one to catch the eye of girls like Kate but maybe that’s because Kate wasn’t a girl like Kate. Seth mulled over the theory, chewing his bottom lip while he sifted through misremembered conversations and imagined body language. His conscience shouted, pleading with the drugged up rationale to forfeit to the alcohol’s dehydration and pass out. 

Seth listened to the old song as it neared its climax, an eerie sense of dissociation crept down his spine and he could no longer endure the confines of his chair. He suddenly craved the prowl. He felt closer to Richie, as if he was looking through his eyes and seeing what Richie saw the moment he met Kate. Seth dragged his index finger down the bridge of his nose, imagining the weight of his brother’s horn-rimmed glasses. He knew they looked different; barely passing for brothers, but Seth was a talented performer. The confidence man could saunter his way down death row and out the back door without anyone raising a brow. For a show like Richie would have given Kate, Seth could embody every characteristic and quirk Richie ever had. He could imitate his voice, slowing down his own tempo and deepening in tone. He could dress up his vocabulary and make each syllable drip hot and familiar in a purr down Kate’s throat. Seth could emulate each of Richie’s unique attributes and behaviors down to a blink. The expert precision begged to come out and play.


	4. Hush Hush

Kate arched her back and stretched vigorously, exposing her navel and sharp hip bones to the draft of the room. Seth hadn’t yet pulled himself from his chair; his eyes blurred and body tingled. He could feel the rush of compulsivity begin a warm spread throw his body. The cocaine made him sweat and jerk, but Kate hadn’t seemed to notice. She wound the cord of her headphones around the iPod and rubbed the laziness out of her eyes. Looking over at the empty bed beside hers, she was surprised by her own obliviousness, having assumed Seth would have been reduced to an inebriated coma by then. Her eyes glided across the room to the chair where he felt safest and found him sitting there, his eyes fixated on her.

Seth did not look her in the eyes but rather at her unclear form that lounged loosely on the bed—a taunt to his double-vision. His sweat-slick face glowed a scarlet blush beneath his tan. His hairline was crowned with moisture, rolling in beads down his face and plummeting off his chiseled jawline. Seth swiped at his nose and shifted shoulders against the back of his chair, as if preparing to move. The exertion of his ‘party of one’ seemed to disenfranchise his movements, reducing his physicality to comedic miscalculations of depth perception. Seth remained still, opting to stabilize before making a fool of himself and attempting to walk.

“Your lip.” Kate said meekly, bringing the Sharpie to her bottom lip and tapping it gently. “It’s bleeding.” Seth had gnawed through his lip absentmindedly. He knew had he not been booze-numb and high that he would have felt it but wondered why the taste hadn’t revealed the mess sooner.

Kate watched Seth as he stopped challenging the bleeding gash with his tongue and let the blood gather naturally in a dark, and warm stream he half-swallowed, and half-let drip to his lap. Kate’s efforts not to stare were futile. She had seen the damage Seth could do to himself while wrecked. He remained silent. If they lived a normal life, a puncture like the one he’d bitten into himself-- merely by watching Kate read her magazine and twirl her hair around her fingers, and his thoughts around the Devil’s-- would have likely merited a fieldtrip to the E.R. and a few stitches. Seth and Kate did not live a normal life though.

Kate came second to having Seth’s mania gratified. The revolving door of dispositions kept her from planning a life outside their room. She didn’t know how long she’d be alive. She didn’t know if leaving would be safer but she doubted it. Seth may have been violent and erratic but he didn’t want to drink her blood and his street smarts made him a good provider.

Seth had never lived up to any of his threats to _take_ her or brutalize her in a way she couldn’t somehow pretend was ‘okay.’ She could justify his behavior, the impulsivity, intimidations and abuses with the memory of who he was so many months prior. Kate could never truly give up on Seth. She would place hope in him because hope was all she could give and Seth was the only one she had at all. Losing hope that he’d stabilize would mean being alone and losing everything to the Twister. All the agony would have been in vain.

The glimpses she had of Seth in a favorable light were scarce. A handful of seconds scattered across a day distracted by mayhem. Their interactions had been nothing compared to her imagination’s dolled up memories. Kate needed the exaggerations though. She needed the comfort they offered, the faith they inspired. She couldn’t believe that the beast that endangered her with his reckless addictions was the same smooth-operator who had to ensure Richie hadn’t **_done_** anything to her at the Dew Drop Inn. She wouldn’t believe that the same body, who pinned hers to the bathroom wall and with intimate threats of his dripping, nude physique, was the same gentleman who’d defended her honor when the bar’s doorman implied Kate was a “Cherry Pie” ready for tasting. Seth responded in suit by breaking the loud-mouth’s nose. She never thanked him for that or for raising his gun, alongside her father, at Sex Machine upon hearing he’d come onto her.

Despite being a bigger danger to Kate, Richie and she had bonded over the duration of that day. He had been patient and kind to her. They had shared gentler moments—even slightly romantic ones. Kate knew that Richie had no conscious desire to hurt her but likely lacked restraint over his own psychopathy. She could never have driven off in a Ferrari with Richie like she had Seth. Seth may have exhibited desires to hurt her at times, but she trusted in his restraint and sanity. That is where the brothers differed. Even still, much had changed since that night and watching Seth’s mouth glisten under the wet crimson, Kate couldn’t help but compare the two brothers and the dusk that never truly became dawn.

Cocaine numbed Seth’s body while his mind tortured it. His paranoia grew more severe—obsessive and irrational. His claustrophobia maximized under the microscope of compulsive self-medicating and neurotic tics. The blood that trickled down his lip brought the Titty Twister’s night of horrors to the forefront of his mind. Blood was Richie’s thing—and they were both thinking it. Kate wondered how many people Richie must have killed by then. She reckoned the number must be high given the violent, indulgent tendencies of his nature. Seth lingered on the image of interrupting his brother from Frenching his way to another sex crime where the Preacher’s Daughter was shown a bad time. He wondered how she would react to his touch now, bloody-mouthed and ravenous; a peck on the neck, now a risk to her pulse.

Kate had only found cause to blush when she recounted the moment she shared with Richie. Her desperation and fear culminated to an untrustworthy attraction to the welcoming embrace of Richie’s devilish and persuasive complexities. She thanked God her father and brother never found out. Seth was a piece of work who would have had a blast prodding and teasing the teenager but in that case, he had more on the line than her reputation ever could. Not to mention the slight of rejection for not being in that position—not because of a vested interest in Kate but because of the sneakiness it involved from the guilty parties. It was a job he didn’t know about, a score he couldn’t risk and a payoff he’d never take. A fear he’d had for Kate had taken form before his eyes but he didn’t know who to feel more jilted by: his brother, the basket case, admitted deviant, dead-man or Kate: the crucifix clasping, seductress who threw Richie off his game and contributed to his downfall. Truthfully, he thought he knew Richie better than the 5 years of rumors that echoed through the prison gates—even if Richie had never concealed his proclivities. Seth had to see it to believe it. Kate on the other hand, had concealed her nature and for this, Seth craved revenge.

The memory rallied anger manifesting inside Seth. He wanted to question Kate. He wanted to drudge up the old and fight a new. He wanted another rampage and to slap her around until she took off her mask and confirmed his suspicions. Seth had exhausted the material, however and he knew jumping right into the matter would merely result in her retreat to the bathroom, where she’d fall asleep in the tub and wait for him to be gone before reemerging.

The taste of blood running down the back of Seth’s throat made him wonder if she thought about that broken moment between her and Richie often and in what spirit. Slowly, he continued to paint over the picture of Kate, he kept in his mind; forever mocking him with her untouchable, delicate class and faithful resolve. Splashes of self-awareness and dark shades of thirst and hot-blooded allure made him salivate. The long strokes of devious tricks only a ‘hush-hush’ savvy _woman_ would indulge... He wanted so desperately to believe that she was as filthy, sinful and flesh-starved as he. He didn’t want to be the bad guy by himself. He didn’t want to be “the Richie.” If he couldn’t find someone corrupt, he was going to corrupt someone himself.

The quiet and sudden stillness forced the two unlikely allies to acknowledge the presence of the other as strange and forced. Seth sat quietly, contemplating the spiral of depravity his train of thought had wandered. He reflected on the nature of the dark imaginings and just how serious he would have been in playing on Richie’s turf, had he not snapped out of his stupor when Kate pointed out his bleeding lip. The mind is a tricky fiend to toil with under such _conditions_. However, Seth wasn’t near sober enough to consider grim daydreams a lapse in judgment. Though, the inkling of nerve lingered with the unabashed clarity of Richie. He watched as the inkling grew to curiosity and curiosity evolved to gripping desire, followed by the tease of impossibility. He felt more cowardly for his inability to throttle the girl than at using force to quell the thickening rage of his entitlement.

Villainous fervency in the core of Seth’s vibrating chest, where his heart was a supererogatory cadence that sent tremors through his body, kept his mind in the gutter of all gutters. Urges intensified, toppling over one another in an uncontrollable chase. Seth could feel the persistence in the heat that reddened his face. The warmth imitating a mounting tension that began to swell between his thighs. Badgering, vivid images played on a loop in his mind. A blueprinted fantasy detailing every hungry, animalistic, throbbing of pulses from the moment he’d lay a finger on her, to the sweaty climax he’d force.

 

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**Just a heads up:**  From this chapter on, things are going to take a spin for the dark, sadistic and disturbed. My chapters are overtly descriptive for a reason. The graphic scenes are filing their teeth around the corner and are not going to sit well in anyone's stomachs. As the chapters build, I hope you can find a safe place to hop off. The descriptiveness of each chapter should help indicate where your breaking point is, should you have one. Reviews are very much appreciated and help me maintain the fic but no pressure. Thanks for tuning in! Next chapter should be up  **within the hour**.


	5. Decency

Seth seemed to perspire more with the passing of each silent moment, shifting into awkward positions Kate didn't understand. She didn't waste time waiting for him to respond. Her statement was essentially rhetorical and he seemed to be docile enough that there was no use in accidentally instigating a tantrum by filling the air with small-talk. If Seth wanted to bleed and fill his belly with his own blood, that was his choice.

The crimson stained Seth's lips which had bloomed to a pout under the bite. She sucked on her own bottom lip—idly mimicking Seth's sweeping tongue. It's pink, wetness periodically trundled his bloody lip between white teeth, pulling the blood from its surface. He looked younger, somehow. He looked like the part of him Kate imagined was trapped inside, wasting away. The Seth she fought to believe was real, who wasn't gone but merely suffering under his drug binges and black outs. He looked reachable.

Kate pitied Seth. True to her nature, she was attracted to the pity. He'd spent so much time tormenting her that she forgot what it was like to have her upper-hand understood without negotiating, or arguing, or dodging backhanded slaps across her face. Kate wasn't like Seth though. She wouldn't use her advantage against him; not unless she had to. Appraising his waning condition she surmised the evening would go smoothly. Soon he would collapse under the weight of self-destruction and she would enjoy the company of another moonlit night in Mexico. Her relief however short-lived, was interrupted with an abrupt, mortifying halt.

Kate blushed cherry-red behind a forced smile that escalated into a heavy exhale. The involuntary titter disguised itself as an urgent sigh. Kate had been arrested by the come-hither motions of Seth's mouth. Dreamily transfixed on the cadent repetition of bleeding, tonguing and teeth grazing, Kate had veered from a modest train of thought to the covetous. Seth's performance stirred a carnal, desirous ache Sunday school hadn't prepared her for. Her heart fluttered against the bashful backdrop of her chaste reality. Her pulse raced in competition with the traveling surge of  _want_. It struck with a feverish heat in the pit of her stomach, writhing lower and lower, until nothing but the fabric of Seth's boxers remained to safeguard her decency.

Kate could feel Seth's eyes on her. Feeling exposed and unspeakably vulnerable, she leapt from her blanket-cradled position and sauntered to the wall nearest the foot of her bed; clicking the air conditioner down from a loud sputtering to a sensible hum. She had seen Seth grow ill from sweating in the cold air before and he was arguably more miserable then, than when he was drunk or high, or both.

Seth watched Kate's slow, coordinated movements; a welcomed competitor to the vision of her casually licking her ruby lips and locking them between perfect teeth. Her hips swayed in the black, designer boxers, rolled at the waist and hiked high. They fell just below the curve of her bottom which made for a nice view from where Seth sat: Kate's back to him, bending over in front of the AC unit, cooling before the brisk air.

Seth never harbored  _true_  ill-will toward Kate— on the surface, at least. He even found it somewhat endearing that she still slept in his clothes after all he'd put her through. He wasn't sure when that started but he knew how few defined boundaries between them  _actually_  existed. A smile remnant of the Seth Kate tried to cling to, crept across his face; locking an amused grin at rest. He rested one leg over the other's knee, gripping his ankle to prevent jittery movements that might foster further stimulation. His utter lack of control over his pleading masculinity made him furious. Even the mere thought of his anger frolicked too closely to the lust-fueled musings he desperately labored to shuck from mind. He felt weak, like a schoolboy who had yet to tame his body.

Seth tossed his free arm into his lap, concealing the form of his stiffening mast. He watched Kate teeter in front of the cool air. She needed a cold shower but the contained breeze would suffice. At the very least, Kate was grateful it helped hasten her flushed face to regain its fair-toned luminosity. Kate jutted her shoulders to-and-fro under a devastating shiver Seth was all too familiar with. The shudder was indicative of the warmth of a woman's breasts suddenly braced with coldness. Kate's nipples perked against the draft and a tingling sensation excited in her bosom, spreading up her spine and tickling her neck and earlobes. Seth didn't need to see the transformation to know what the tremor meant. Her body responded to the frigidness of the room, as much as Seth's had merely by having witnessed Kate coaxed to a reaction. His aching grew and he shifted in his place, stifling an uneasy whimper. It fought against a deep, shaky breath in his throat but was quickly lost to an oncoming primal pant.

Kate and Seth tended to live as one creature. Any supposed attraction before Seth's awakening to the Preacher's Daughter was cause for speculation. Living in such close proximity to one another, Seth and Kate relied on Mother Nature to take her course in expelling any mystery or allure that could ever arise between two people living in seclusion. They cherished the uncompromised promise of platonic kinship that their shelter sanctioned. Impervious to curiosity, hormone-induced frenzies, even pent-up aggression, desire relinquished from the scope of their small, shared world. The refuge lasted until the will of Nature was no longer swayed by the delicate, human sensibilities She envied. Almost instantly, raw, untethered instinct exposed their limitations and egregious need for distance.

The pair's joint anxieties of surpassing a  _familial_  understanding of one another and inadvertently entering verboten territory was jarring and isolating. This time, however, it isolated one another. Seth and Kate independently came to the conclusion that they must be contented to last an indefinite forbiddance of shared carnal-gratification, despite every cell in their bodies soliciting touch in crescendo. Their similar thought processes had deemed the plot practical. The impractical element lying in the unspoken scheme itself. The varying details existed nowhere beyond Kate and Seth's separate hopes that denial would prevail over basic instincts.

The tongue-tied team swept the arresting notions of intimate, albeit hypothetical, physicality between one another under the rug. Unspoken suspicions and suppressed affections were systematically refused. The preservation of Kate and Seth's "uncomplicated  _reality_ " writhed beneath the threat of  **extinction**  locking  **decency**  in its crosshairs. Suddenly the matter of discrete rousing lacked front-page significance. Seth was an all-around sexual being and his shame in being discovered as such ran with dogs. Indecency was important to him, in the same way it was important he cover Kate's eyes when they passed road kill. His decency was in protecting her decency and the surefire way to do that was to keep a safe distance.

Kate was relatively oblivious to Seth's watchful eye. She had trouble following his thoughtful gestures since he'd grown beastly and violent. Keeping her own distance from him was for her own safety, not some moral obligation to purge corruption from the teen. Even still, Kate hid behind the Scripture. Her inarguably prevailing purity was not discussed, as it fell under the heavily guarded concept of  _decency_. Though the unspoken truth affixed in complications and inhibitions was a siren that rang louder than all of Seth's tirades, tantrums, thunderous rage-storms combined. It was her halo and Seth could not thieve. Seth would look at her young face, clear of imperfections and wrinkles, and staring back at him would be a neon sign that boasted her invincibility. Seth could use violence, his temper and fear to torment Kate, and he implemented them often, but there was a line he would not cross. Even as a outlaw, he could not  _claim_  the innocence of her flesh.

In truth, Kate's cherry was their most reliable defense against wanton persuasions they could procure. Their separate urges to surrender rivaled one another's stubborn refusal to speak on the matter. Had it not been for the certainty of her chastity, the off-the-record -and unbeknownst to each other- infatuations would have been satiated under the coercive ruin that birth impulsive violations. Every carnal corruption: a loveless touch, devouring goodness for fleeting bliss.

Even still, Seth had no uncontrollable desire to bear the responsibility of deflowering anyone—least of all, a  _teenage_  girl. Emotions were messy and he wouldn't know what to do with her in a capacity that deemed her first time be with a guy like him. Seth still toiled with the feeling of Richie's eyes on his back, heavily breathing down his neck. Fiercely encouraging Seth to throttle Kate, and ravage her for all she was worth. For her sake, he was relieved she'd sealed herself off to him. It was only a matter of dying seconds before Seth did  _something_.

Kate's distrust in Seth encouraged her to keep a safe distance. Everything was an inside joke with himself and everything was a job, a score, a gamble. Kate refused to be added to his collection of pilfered goods, forever haunted by the taunting smirk of Seth Gecko.

Despite their flaws, the duo operated in relative synchronicity. Alternating between night owl and early bird, they were always on watch against whatever dangers circled overhead. After all, that was the closest to  _mutual comfort_  they could come.

Seth hadn't forgotten the good times they had shared. He remembered with unfair lucidity the events that threw them together. The motel hopping that ensued, until they were as far from the fang run bar as he could get them. It wasn't until they retired to their last stop that they even began sleeping in separate beds. At first it was out of convenience: cheap, cash only, efficiency rooms with one bed made any alternate arrangement impractical. Though, Seth did spend a handful of nights on the floor, giving Kate the bed and a place to quietly cry herself to sleep.

Seth would wind up pulling himself from the floor to Kate's side at a moment's notice, calming her from violent, blood-curdling nightmares. Seth was often the recipient of attacks, scratches, bites, slaps and weak-fisted punches in the midst of her terrors. Those nights never went quietly or quickly but had somehow managed to pass before any real sleep was had. Kate's fits were regular as clockwork, worsening under the stress of sleepless nights accumulation. Seth began to weaken, as well. It was Kate who soon insisted they endure the closeness of night and just share the motel bed. Seth had been defeated by exhaustion and couldn't have battled another sleepless night but was happy to oblige her request, knowing he could likely do more good beside her when the terrors came. For a while he felt the need to justify the sleeping arrangement. There was a wayward, kink to it that he had trouble digesting early on. But the sense of security they offered one another in the darkness, made the peculiarity of sleeping next to a high schooler a small price to pay.

Seth was not exempt from the night however; and he distorted against the horrendous visions to Hell, agonizing over the all-too-real sensation of loss it left him with. Drenching the sheets in sweat and jolting upright in a panic, his responses were less animated than Kate's but she always knew when he'd fallen victim to them. She would remain silent as Seth stumbled through the few safe places he had in his mind, looking for any serene memory to bring him comfort. Kate would rally to her feet and navigate the darkness with the effortlessness of a stray cat. She'd scrounge through his drawers or piles of laundry, grab him a fresh shirt to change into and towel to throw over the sweaty sheets till morning broke. When Seth finally closed his eyes, she'd whisper prayers over him she thought he never heard—but he always did—and always loved.

They did not spoon or cuddle or wake in dramatic, tender embraces that jetted a fiery passion between them. Seth kept to his side—always closest to the door—gun at the ready. Kate slept safely in her own space between Seth's strapping physique and a wall, a bathroom or closet. They didn't fight over blankets, warm cold hands under the front of the other's shirt, play footsy or offer to massage a sore muscle. There wasn't any pillow talk or sentimental conversation to make sleeping any more difficult than it already was. The rules were unspoken but they existed. They were still strangers at that point and they both knew the bed was no place for an orphaned, teenage girl and gentleman felon in his 30's to get to know one another. They ignored any awkwardness sleep induced. She always kept her eyes above shoulder level in the morning and he was careful not to look anywhere but Kate's eyes when her fits would leave her barely clothed or even partially exposed. This was how they built trust on the road.

During the day, they would play games or go swimming. He'd taken her out a few times for drinks she wasn't forced to get down or even accept. They'd unwind on a cloud of co-dependence. Seth would glare boyishly at beautiful women and Kate would roll her eyes. He'd make a playful declaration and chuckle. "C'mon, Katie Milady, you know you're the only girl for this Gecko." She'd laugh and shake her head, catching his wink before taking a sip of her cocktail. He'd help her to bed when she drank too much, she'd pull him from brawls when he drank too much. He'd leave her out a glass of water and Tylenol; she'd clean his injuries and tell him he won. They made a great team and Seth remembered this.

Seth was more sentimental than he let on; always dubbing Richie "the sensitive one." Though Seth thought back on the notes they'd leave each other in fog, as the other showered and the conversations they could maintain while she took a bath and he shaved his scruff. They didn't lock the bathroom door then and they certainly didn't hide behind it. They shared toothpaste, and shampoos; he could still remember the scent of Kate's damp hair, curling at the bottom as it air dried and scattered around her head like a crown on the bedding. It was always cleaner, sweeter, and more fragrant than he ever came out to be. Kate would leave her natural fragrance on Seth's clothes, as she slowly worked her way through his wardrobe.

Kate had her own clothing by then but found comfort in Seth's. There was a sense of security in wearing a man's clothing. She imagined belonging to the man whose boxers she'd slip on after a night of  _bed sharing_  and he would be her greatest protector. In turn, Seth ached at the sight of seeing Kate don his garments. He hadn't noticed her do it in a while, granted the drugs and alcohol kept him pretty removed. He still loved the image of the young body strutting innocently around his company in boxers he was sure other women had pulled off him in the past. Kate was not those women though—Kate was marvelously different.

Seth's thick lashes fluttered over his dark eyes, peering into daydreams of the teen. Kate's wavy, chocolate hair cascading off her shoulders in a wild heap. Her timid smile and the way she'd tilt her head at a downward angle to conceal her blushing cheeks. She'd slip each smooth leg tenderly through the designer threads of his clothes, pulling the fabric up her thighs and around her untouched flesh. He'd seen countless women at various stages of undress but never Kate—never in the same light as the others anyway.

Seth thought back on encounters from his youth, the firmness of a young woman's body, how everything was in the place God had intended and skin was soft and supple. He imagined their bodies on Kate, who rewound in the fantasy and slid out of his boxers, purring his name against his throat, her teeth grazing his sense of decorum. It was  _the old fashioned way_  a woman would find her way into his clothes and bed that he missed but it was the only way he knew before Kate. A fugitive smile confirmed his preference for Kate's method above all, but he would have traded his soul to meld the best of both worlds.

The stiffness in his lap pulsated, encouraging him to taper onto milder fantasies. He wondered what Kate made his clothes smell like now. The ever-changing aroma had always been bliss to his senses. Her scent mingled with his—worn clothes still warm from body heat. The longing was unbearable. He filled the void with hatred. It was her fault. Everything was Kate's fault and he wanted to ruin her for it.

As Kate's nightmares had become less frequent, Seth's increased with a vengeance. He needed her but she had pulled away, leaving him to combat the terrors alone. The resentments and grievances had been stacking to colossal heights for months. There was a wounding sense of abandonment that outraged him—he felt used, singled out; defeated. Kate was too good to spend her nights beside a thief anymore. She was too young to appreciate his company over drinks. She was bored; he couldn't entertain or inspire her. He wasn't brooding, he was explosive and that was more predictable than a pensive pessimist. Seth was outdated. She wanted Richie. She didn't want to be 'this Gecko's girl' anymore. Kate was just another tease: a too-good-to-be-true score that could only make you, if it didn't break you and it always broke you.

Kate had promised hope but she gave up on Seth. He couldn't recognize the eyes that looked upon her now; full of such immense insecurity and paranoia but they couldn't look in the mirror and recognize the face staring back either. Seth had given up on himself too; he just didn't know where it all went wrong or who gave up first.

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 **So sorry for the delay, folks.** Ran into a snag that kept me from posting this chapter. 100% positive it is riddled with errors and a "draft feel" but I wanted to get it posted as soon as I could. My general policy when writing darker themes has always been to warn readers in advance of any graphic or sensitive material. With that said: **the next chapter takes an aggressive turn and is darker in theme and nature.** Watch the ramblers get ramblin' straight down to the Hell I've built for 'em. As always, thanks for tuning in. Don't forget to leave a love letter on my desk.


	6. Old Dog

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**A/N:** Sorry for the update delay-- was conflicted about certain elements and had to do a massive overhaul. I won't shortchange any readers (hopefully) and will stick true to the story and intended direction. However, **due to content matter** , I've decided to split the chapter in half to better isolate particularly dark aspects for those who wish not to read it.

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“Second opinions are hard to come by ‘round here.” Seth leaned his head on his balled, left fist. His left arm elbowed the tacky, threadbare chair facing the full spread of the room. Kate was taken aback by the cool, deepness of his voice. She did not recognize it as Seth’s. She spun around, half-expecting to see someone else.  
“What’s that?” Her brow perked behind her question. She crawled back on the bed and pulling her knees to her chest, eyeing Seth’s stillness in anticipation. Regardless of the pains she knew and the hell he put her through, relative civility between them was not so easily dismissed by Kate. They used to have fun once; she remembered this well though doubted in his deteriorated state that Seth did.

“You were taking a quiz.” Seth closed his eyes, systematically wiping wicked images from his mind; the sort of images that would make Richie feel right at home behind Seth’s bloodshot eyes. Struggling to regain composure in the face of temptation and his brother’s calm, soothing voice; Seth continued to downplay any physical signs of coveting Kate’s unsullied body. Succumbing to the carnage was more difficult than his imagination led on. Seth had taken on the endeavor of the girl’s livelihood with honor bound righteousness to protect her. He couldn’t imagine the devolution he was fighting would ever have been an issue six months ago—he couldn’t imagine it applied to himself anyway—unless it was evolution and Richie had been right all along.

Seth was at a disadvantage. He’d raised a gun to Sex Machine after hearing he had hit on Kate once. He’d knocked out a doorman and nearly gotten killed for it too. The thought of any man, peer, or bible-school-buddy making any advances on her infuriated him and lit his bones under his skin. His desires were weakening him and he knew he’d killed men for less in the past. Other men didn’t understand. Other men could not understand and he believed Kate knew that too. The void that could only be filled with aspects of her began to growl and hunger for more. It was no longer out of light to protect her from men like his brother. It was out of a thirst to taste what men like his brother tasted. It was ownership. At this point, he’d consider staking Richie if he got in the way of his fantasy; Hell, if he got too close.

Intoxicated, Seth was a menace endangering the wholeness and dignity of those around him. His need to imitate Richie’s brutality may have been a delusional aspiration but made Seth feel closer to his former partner-in-crime all the same.  
Sober, Seth was understandably unapproachable and troubled at times; often preoccupied with the anxieties, traumatic spirals and remorse but he had always had control.

On rare occasions, decent moments in the room’s confines flickered by, regardless of his state of mind. Temporarily granted reprieve from his demons, Seth would pretend everything was okay and he’d be calm, secure and even-tempered. He would even be pleasant, finding cause to laugh and enjoy the lucidity. Until the roaring might of all the tragedy rushed upon him and he couldn’t breathe unless it was in defense. He didn’t enjoy being coherent then. He didn’t enjoy being coherent at all. He never had.

The reality was too great to bear sober. Richie had chosen a life without Seth; walking undead and in the darkness, feasting on the flesh and blood of the living. The Gecko Brothers were by no means “the good guys” but they certainly weren’t the evil ones either. Richie changed that. He had chosen evil personified over their brotherhood and Seth feared for him. He feared for Kate too. Most of all, he feared losing his control. Be it by embracing the depravity, or repressing it.

The battle for his dwindling morality was losing to his overwhelming need to corrupt. It had waged on for too long without release. Seth was a man split in two. He slaved under the clash of right and wrong, and all the smoky shades in between. All he had to do was choose and he’d be free. Every sprint of his imagination took him one step closer to making his first or final move. Seth knew it was a matter of time before it was out of his hands. It was like waiting on death row. ‘Flip the switch, and get it over with.’

Kate thought back on the results Seth had inquired about but having completely forgotten what the quiz was even about, she flipped back to the page in the magazine. “A professional verdict may be worth pursuin’.” She sighed, closing the pages once more and dragging her hair out of her face in a gentle swoop. She was decidedly careful not to focus too long on any particular mannerism Seth sexualized merely by being Seth Gecko.

“Was the journey through self-discovery a fruitful undertaking?” Seth still managed to speak in a superficially lyrical manner. It parodied his former bravado; another line of defense against Kate that she hadn’t grown to understand yet. He had a tendency to sound as if he didn’t know whether or not he was on a job, and supposed to be in charge or charming. He twisted words with his lips, rolling them on his tongue and intensifying inflections arbitrarily. His tone was never short on subtext. It was a stark contrast against Richie who spoke in a velvet monotone demand for compliance; like the disembodied voice that startled Kate moments before. A transition was taking place before her. It wasn’t the Christian way of thinking but if she couldn’t prevent Seth from destroying himself like his brother, she’d certainly see it to the end.

“Hardly arrived at the Tree of Knowledge.” Kate grinned coyly. Her reluctance to disclose details encouraged Seth to pry further. He had never stopped prompting her for confessions. To date, there had been no safe Seth could not crack if it harbored a secret of Kate’s. He had a knack for wrestling her reservations into agreement. Manipulating the unveiling of her whispered mysteries, each prod and poke was a lick of honey on the tongue of a famished man. Every victory was a deliberate performance; heightening his experience and making him feel as if he still had his Gecko touch.

Seth would playful tease Kate until she showed physical signs of thrill, entertainment, or the naïve huff of instigation. The process was among their slew of games, where he’d test her will to withhold information from him, and she’d try to last longer than the round before. It was excellent on long drives or over cold drinks but they hadn’t played in a while.

“Well, hallelujah! Now I know there was a revelation. You ready to come clean, Bambi?” Seth charmed; his eyes closed as he fought off a dizzy spell.  
“It’s a stupid Cosmo quiz. You wouldn’t find it very interesting.”  
“Don’t underestimate me. I’m a man of refined tastes.” Seth spoke in an even exhale.  
“Refined? Then I’m positive it’d never interest you.”  
“It held your attention alright.” Seth pointed out, waving the back of his hand at Kate to continue.  
“You’re gonna laugh. It’s stupid.”  
“Sometimes I laugh at things that aren’t stupid.” Seth was rarely pressed to suggest a multidimensional side but always plenty ironic to compensate for his cryptic reflex.  
“It’s just some dumb sex quiz, it’s silly. I don’t know why I even took it.” Kate regretted the words spilling out of her mouth and shook off a nervous laugh, as Seth’s eyes darted open. The closeness had done them no favors. She barely controlled a blush by pretending she was talking to Scott—triggering a defensive sorrow she now worried about controlling.  
“Kate that is exactly what I find very interesting.” Seth’s deadpan response tailed a gentle pause where, for once, he was taken by surprise.  
“Maybe you should take the quiz then. Even the playing field for once.” Kate held a blithe grin Seth couldn’t help wince at.  
“I already know what sex is, Cherry blossom.” Kate remained unfazed by the evocative pet name. It wouldn’t be long before he was up to his old spirits-- then chased away by his clockwork ghosts.  
“You were around during its discovery.” She crooned.  
“That’s a myth. I merely revolutionized it.”  
“Old dogs’ gotta have tricks too.” Kate heard Seth chuckle at her counter.

The age gap between them had always been a sensitive subject. There was nothing they could do about it; though nothing they did called for them to do something about it anyway. It was an unspoken politeness that they both adhered to basic age appropriate behavior. It was another stab at maintaining decency for the sake of preserving whatever good was left between either of them. This was much more important to Seth than Kate, or rather, much more frequently a thought on the forefront of his mind. Granted, both Kate and Seth knew it would be easier to spar and communicate if they could gauge the other’s comfort when more intimate or serious themes were introduced into conversation. Seth had been reluctant to tiptoe down that alley. Naturally, albeit reluctantly, Kate followed suit. She was growing up but had no one to watch her do it. Her family was gone and Seth averted her maturity like the plague.

“You can always come to me for advice. Any questions or ideas, concerns. Especially ideas—” Seth was biting the inside of his cheeks trying not to laugh.  
“Oh my God, no, we’re not having the talk. Thank you, Foster Father but I can handle it from here and if I can’t, Google is there to pick up the slack.” Kate couldn’t tell if he was pulling her leg but knew it would wind up an uncomfortable conversation—not because of boundaries that didn’t exist but because of his state of mind and likely, the inability to remember it the next day. Seth was treading waters he would have rather drowned in before and his intensions perplexed Kate.  
“All the Way Kate.” He tossed out another pet name.  
“Stop it.”  
“Katie X-Rated.” His cheeks dimpled above his grin.  
“You’re impossible.” Kate shook her head at Seth. He was stepping farther out of the shallow end unchecked. She was used to being the adult between the two but Seth hadn’t seemed to notice he’d become the child. Their interactions could be playful but lacked equality since the Twister. At least then, having admitted to kissing Kyle at the insistence of Seth, his intimidation was discreetly frisky. Seth hadn’t been on a bender lasting months back then. He was safer and she was safer; and it seemed so long ago—the distance made Kate’s heart sink even lower. The repartee and games would not last. It was merely a question of how soon and how bad? Being a creature of hardship, Kate could feel the walls closing in.

“Cosmo quizzes are the at home piss tests of psychiatric diagnostics.” Seth proclaimed. “Don’t check for anything you need to know because they can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”  
“So why take them?” Kate tilted her head curiously. She wondered how Seth could explain the motives of millions of people who took those silly magazine quizzes. Her hair fell to one side and tickled her arm. It ran a shiver up her neck that triggered the reality of the room’s briskness.  
“Affirmation. Cheap, easy, dishonest affirmation.” Seth answered matter-of-factly.  
“Well why lie if it won’t change anything?”  
“To make you feel you have. It’s all about affirmation.” Seth spoke with lazy hand gestures and watched Kate process his theory. She wasn’t offended so much as uneasy about how right Seth was. Seth was always right. “Affirmation is important.” He continued in a tone pitched to instigate and ensnare her attentions. “You’re young, curious, and the world is at your feet but you’re too afraid to look down. Hormones, expectations, shame, tampons. What do I do? Where’s it s’posed to go? Gag reflexes, age of consent, lipstick, too much tequila, too little clothes. Nintendo.” Seth weighed his hands up and down animatedly, tilting his head from side to side expressing the importance of his mock-enlightenment targeting the needs and woes of being a teenage girl.  
“You’re a regular Confucius, Seth.”  
“I know women, what can I say?”  
“You know something alright.” Kate focused her discomfort on the “age of consent” addition and wondered if he was insinuating a methodical statement. His monologue said he wasn’t but his tone and the low growl he seemed to stifle, said otherwise.  
“You’re stalling. It’s cute to try but a futile effort, sweetheart.”  
“You’re reciting slam poetry on the plight of being female. Whose effort is futile again?”  
“Female and young. Entirely different demographic.” Seth corrected.  
“I guess there’s just so much more to learn from you.”  
“Can you at least share the quiz’s objective or do I need to break you twice?” Seth agonized through an artful sneer.

Kate let an eye roll make its way to Seth. It was lighthearted and good-spirited but he began to look at her like the snob he believed she pretended not to be. The jaded light he shed on her made it easier to pluck her strings and disturb her dignified glow.  
“I understand your reluctance to share. Takes more than a key to open you vault.” Seth was smooth, laying down a foundation of impropriety that Kate was oddly okay to indulge.  
“Takes more than a master heist-man too.”  
“How about two?” Seth stabbed.  
Seth never brought up even a notion of Richie existing. She was starting to form an understanding of what the night had in store for her—or rather, what Seth had in store for the night.  
“Didn’t you get sent up river tryin’ to open the wrong vault, Jailbird?” Kate quickly dodged Seth’s smug hint and grew more fearful.  
“Got out though, didn’t I, Jailbait? Lived to penetrate another vault another day and I gotta tell ya’—a powerful tool, an experienced touch and just the right amount of pressure makes all the difference in that moment of entry.” Seth looked rabid. He spoke with a grin that bared his flawless teeth. His tongue gliding over the slow-bleeding cut he’d bitten into his bottom lip. It was red from bloodstains and over-stimulation. The deep brown of his eyes peered upward from below furrowed brows. He leaned forward. Grasping the front of the chair’s arms, Seth pulled his body to the edge of the chair. His focus zeroed in on Kate’s inexperience, and modest curiosity. His tone was guttural and honeyed, coercing Kate’s primitive, unguided reactions.

“The ultimate violation suddenly becomes the most intensely gratifying climax of manual achievements.” Kate found it hard to maintain eye contact but harder to look away, as an electric storm of adrenaline rose from her lower abdomen, jetting through her body. Kate had lost. She would confess the details of the quiz upon his next request. But it didn’t come. ‘It’s going to be one of those nights again...’ Kate prepared herself.

The silence was a vulture sharpening its beak on the skull of noise. It replaced the oxygen in the motel room with a chill that made Kate pin her chin to her knees with a shiver. Seth ran his fingers along his swollen bottom lip and let out a cynical chuff.

“So when will Prayin’ Kate upgrade to Katie Naked anyway?” Seth had begun to spiral and succumb to the early steps of a blackout. Kate was used to those sorts of questions as late nights turned into early mornings. Seth just never remembered asking them. It was no surprise however, as their contact was limited and strained, best case scenario.  
“Wouldn’t call that an upgrade.” Kate defied with her eyes on his long fingers skiing in blood.  
“Would my brother?” The silence would have been good fortune, had it not retreated.  
“You know good and well he’d have no opinion to offer on the subject.”

Seth scoffed and lit a cigarette, “I’ll have to shed some light for him then.” The smoke drifted to an open vent but the smell conquered the room anyway. It mingled with the green tea and jasmine mist Kate sprayed on the beds to keep the room from going stale.  
“Richie—now, Richie. He could see things. Saw Santanico. He saw what was coming. Four-eyed, punk could look at shit and tell you the recipe behind it. It’s what made him such a good Boxman… being able to see things, everything. He could even see you, buttercup. I didn’t see you. Then again I’m not afflicted with his…” Seth eyed Kate up and down, pawing at his 5’oclock shadow, “…prodigious vision.” Every syllable was an strike; a warning of what could come to pass. “You were just some little Miss Crucifix. Another sweet sixteen, powder-puff princess with a coward for a father and psychopath for a brother. Guess that makes us alike; huh, Pussycat?” Seth’s question was loaded and the mere mention of her family enraged her. It took every ounce of strength she could muster not to show weakness. Seth didn’t mind tears—especially if he’d earned them.  
“Richie could see a lot and maybe that’s why he’s not here.” Kate leaned back against the headboard. “He saw it all and out of everything, you were the only detail he couldn’t bear to look at anymore.” Kate dug her heels in the mattress but did not retreat behind a joking grin or teasing eye roll.  
“Meow… Kitty’s got claws.” Seth purred, sucking on his bottom lip and gripping each arm rests with on hand. He rapped his fingertips on the furniture. It was an even, non-threatening tempo but as it sped up, so did Kate’s heartbeat. “I’ll be damned, baby brother’s child temptress: the Dewdrop Darling, all aglow with the ethereal splendor of mouthing off to her thieving and murderous captor.”  
“You’re not my captor anymore, Seth.” Kate shifted in annoyance and swung her legs over the bed, dropping her feet to the floor and standing swiftly. Seth watched her body adjust to the spring of the mattress and the boxers crowd up her thighs. Her chest heaved under the strength of her vehement declaration. She headed toward the bathroom door, hearing Seth snort a long inhale and clear his throat.

Seth could taste his opportunity. The sharp, jarring kick of an intimate corruption made his mouth water. The taste was a metallic tang, hypnotic in its attachment to Kate; and he savored every it’s surge. The cocaine dripping down the back of his throat collided on his tongue. He thumbed open a prescription bottle and tipped it into his mouth. Crunching on uppers, he peered up at Kate from under his eyebrows and with a smirk that told her he was going nowhere that night.

“Kate,” Seth baited. She stopped in her tracks. Kate was turned on her hip, locking eyes over her shoulder, trying to be brave. “I will always be your captor.”

* * *

 

**Hope you stay tuned for the second half. It's going to be a long night for us all. Don't forget to drop a line, my pets.**


	7. Uncle Eddie's Wisdom

**A/N:**  Heartbreakers & Firecrackers: I ask you to think back on **‘Old Dog’** (chapter six) and the intense, emergency edit it underwent moments before publication, that resulted in it being split into two parts. Updates for **The Normal One** have been slightly delayed since then but luckily appear to be leveling out. With that said, several respected voices have suggested I do the same with this chapter and though it was not in my initial design, I’m inclined to agree with them. This chapter wound up being a fifteen-or-so page installment – which was suffocating, especially due to the graphic and dark material it focused on. The only other option was to cut **imperative** details (much like the ultimatum of **‘Old Dog’** ) and risk the story’s integrity. As that would only serve to inevitably cheat the readers, I could not let that happen.

 **Upside:** The price of story integrity is incredibly reasonable and worth investing in! For the low, low rate of laying the plot's last few bricks in its own chapter, you can ensure the leap to explicit content is not without merit, purpose or tact!

* * *

Pink mist carried through the morning glow. Drops of blood spraying on the filth-spattered clothing of the orphan, marooned in an orange desert she did not know. Her shirt was soaked through with sweat, the gore of somebody else’s grisly demise, and the all too real reminder of a fight she would not soon forget. The stench of exertion and remains: a consolation prize for her participation and a punishment for her survival. She peered into the vast stretch of foreign land before her. The spread was a shadow offering no shade or refuge. It twisted in the distance, taunting her dilated eyes with a rippling horizon, beckoning her to chase a deathtrap mirage. The girl had championed Death and He did not appreciate being bested. Death clung to her. His chill ran up her spine, while the hot, Mexican sun flushed sweat down it. She felt watched; but also as if she had skipped out on a check. She was all that could ever remain of a Final Girl. In the gunshot of an instant, she deteriorated to her most vulnerable state. She was a raw, exposed nerve; alone, detached and waiting for Death to make His move.

The culmination of conflicting realities, traumas, and unspeakable anguish radiated through her soul. The girl’s shock ran an infection to her core, dismantling her in entirety. She was lost, and small. She was the ash abandoned by flames. She was no longer concrete or with direction; she was fragile and empty, and helpless. The overdose of reality was a paralyzing bully that throttled her numb. Her frailty was seduced by the cavalier surrender of an innate recklessness only the mad or dead could confess to knowing. The girl was mutating; being dragged to the doorstep of further calamity.

Solitude spawned desperation that fell in line with her powerlessness and instigated her need to Frankenstein a family for herself. The newly orphaned Kate needed an ally.

Kate followed her feet to the place where a familiar face appeared just as lost as she. He fixed his sights on the distance before him, but knew no matter where he went, it would never be far enough. The sun reflected off his eyes, flickering against the gloss of fresh tears. His neck flushed a ruby hue under the protective rays keeping the night’s monsters at bay. The bite his brother had given him throbbed, staining his expensive shirt as it bled. Kate glanced at the wound – the blood was an eerily beautiful shade of red that reminded her of happy cartoons. She could see his brother smirking, licking crimson from his fingertips and lips.

Kate pitied the brothers. When she met them, they had no one, and now they had less. The man no longer held the presence he once had. Seth was once fiercely terrifying but seemed to have aged significantly under the twirling arms of an unforgiving clock. He seemed ill and just as lost as she. The fear Kate allowed to manifest in her gut, reserved specifically for Seth Gecko, had dissipated into nothing. She had nothing left to fear losing. She had nothing left at all.

There was an uneasy double-take that jerked through Seth’s neck. He spotted the youthful survivor approaching him – fearlessly. A fear flooded him suddenly. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since his heart beat at a normal tempo: weeks, months – years, more likely. The labored pulsation in his chest made him dizzy and he had to shake the fear from his mind’s eye. A bigger part of him than not feared he was still caught in the Twister’s games; and that Kate wasn’t coursing toward him. The hopes that she had survived were ones he could not yet relinquish to the everyday civilian casualty.  He would rather not know of her outcome than face the chance that she had perished in the bar: a result of his crimes.

Seth struggled to keep his heart at a fair pace. Tremors rattled his core and sprinted for his fingers. His hands trembled and he was lost to the shame of his fear. Kate advanced in a smooth glide. Her waiflike grace crossed the unpaved ground between them with a confidence he never considered she’d possess. Small clouds of dust billowed at her feet and around her calves. His every curious eyelash, dared to slow her stride to a memorable sway he silently prayed was real.

Kate was taken aback by the state of Seth and his devolution. A muffled neediness dragged his shoulders down and kept his eyes, ever leery, at a squint. Seth looked as tired as she imagined she did. More than that, however, Seth looked homesick. A tragic condition deemed incurable for the two survivors. The Kate of yesterday’s no longer watched through virgin eyes, awaiting the collapse of the world, nor sought beauty to be contrary. Kate was not Kate, any more than Seth was, Seth.

The versions of themselves they had rectified against nature, nurture and married to the combat of long-hauls hard times, had vacated them both. Spirited into the night like teenage runaways, chasing a phantom guide to the places one goes when they are never to be heard from again. Kate was no more “Kate” than Seth was, “Seth.” With no one else left to mourn who they were, they mourned themselves, in the form the Twister had left them in. Depending on the suffocation of white noise to drown out the echo of countless yesterday’s turn becoming who they were, drifted out of understanding in a ghostly purr that offered little closure.

Kate locked eyes with Seth. For the first time, she saw the world as it truly was: unfiltered and naked, under the beating lamp of the sun and watchful eyes of the universe. The wisdom she’d acquired overnight peeled back the tapestry of childlike naivety and burdened the soul with truth. There was no unseeing the darkness; and the panic of an unrecognizable world pried at the idle specimen she had resolved to. Yesterday’s Kate no longer watched through the windows of her eyes with rose-tinted glasses and hope. She was left in a glacial stand-still.

The space between the two, familiar faces began to blend into the world around them. Seth kept his disbelief harnessed to Kate’s every step. He found his perception skewed. His judgment was driven by simplicity, survival and pleasure. Processing Kate had required more structure than his current state had the capacity for. The Preacher’s daughter, fluent in Psalms and forgiveness, the shy, modest teen had become a Final Girl and outlived nearly everyone but the hardened crook and his vampire-brother. It was all too much.

Kate closed the space between herself and Seth. She countered his cool lean against a convertible, with her own casual pose. Her bruised body couldn’t do much else and she didn’t want to fall to pieces. Truth be told, she neither had it in her, nor morphed into the type who blubbered over spilled blood. The mischievous ambiguity between them undermined: “You want some company?” Her voice was calm but her soul was pleading. For the first time since darkness, she saw Seth as he was to her – if only for a fleeting moment. It was in his smile; and it was weak, but it was his. “Yea.”

Jesus, had she ever been so young? 

* * * 

Kate could feel the corners of her lips twitch. She could almost remember warmness of life before the Geckos. It was unthinkable, how far the two had come, yet how far they remained from one another. Kate stiffened her jaw, stifling a brazen sob. Her memory was in competition against her survival as her greatest adversary. She shucked the self-pity from her mind, knowing it would only upset her further and she refused to let Seth see her emerge from the bathroom a broken girl.

Kate could hear a faint melody sing from behind the closed bathroom door. It was unusual in the way watching a color TV becomes after growing accustomed to black and white. Seth had never played music in the room before, nor acknowledged a particular sense of interest in tunes. They’d spent hours, days-- weeks in complete silence without ever filling the room with music. Kate pressed her ear to the door. The song was subtle, slow, and old. It was not at all what she would have imagined Seth listening to. It was an uplifting tune with sorrowful lyrics. She closed her eyes; taking in each note and syllable she could make out. She knew the song. At least, she had heard it before, she just couldn’t place where.

The lullaby was classic and eerie. It had no business being played in the desert-- let alone by a man of Seth’s narrowed interests. Stoned, drunk and irate, Seth didn’t need nostalgia filling his ears. Seth needed about a gallon of water, a triple dose of Tylenol and a good night’s sleep or two. Kate needed Seth to need this too. She had outlived her bloodline-- reluctantly. She had witnessed her brother set fire to the familial ties that bound them together as siblings. Scott was more than a few signatures, legal formalities, international custody disputes and court fees. Scott was more than the bite that killed her father. Her father was more than the mystery behind her mother's death. Seth's placement in her life was imperative and an overdose would completely dismantle even the cardboard-stable foundation, she had grown accustomed to building on with Seth. For the bereaved orphan Kate had become, she was hardly a seasoned funeral maven. In fact, Kate had never actually been a funeral. She imagined how awful it must feel to be an attendee at a service, viewing or vigil for a loved one-- and how much worse it would be for those tasked with the event's arrangements. Kate did not need the experience to know that she was not cut-out for that sort of responsibility. Seth needed to straighten himself out.

Kate pulled from the door and rested against a shower-adjacent wall. It was paper thin, absorbing the freedom roaming on the other side. It felt alive. The thrum of the air conditioner juddered behind the cheap wallpaper. It dulled Seth’s music to a hushed fancy, and she wasn’t even sure she recognized the tune anymore. There was no sound of Seth. There was no clattering of prescription bottles. The unceasing tap of a razor cutting cocaine had vanished. It's sister annoyance, the screech that followed spacing the powder into neat, white lines, had also stopped. Glass wasn’t breaking and nothing seemed to be getting heaved across the room in a fit. Seth wasn't yelling. Kate reckoned Seth must have finally called it a night. Even with his last few doses, the stretch he’d gone without sleep could have been just long enough to overpower the pills and powder. Kate could only hope the stacking evidence rang true. She didn’t want to spend another night locked in a motel bathroom. She needed openness to breathe, even if it was only the musty air of their tacky, unwelcoming room.

Seth was still and silent. His form appeared as if the universe pressed pause, halting only his movements. Even his center was without spring. The rise and fall had ceased. No lifting chest: no heartbeat; no pulse, no respiration-- no life-- utterly motionless. Seth's eyes were neither open nor shut. As if photographed half-way to a blink, his eyes were fixed in disinterest. Cloudy and pale, he looked blind. His eyes were bleached of their chocolate depth. His skin was no longer warm hues of bronze or ruby but doll-like, lacking his usual glow. Relaxed to a slight, hinted smile, Seth's head rested on the carpet underneath him. His legs were outstretched. With one arm at his side and its palm facing up, as it clutched a cigarette between two fingers. The other lay atop his chest peacefully; as if created to rest in that precise spot all along.

The cigarette was a balanced column of ash. There was no telling how long it’d been since Seth's mouth dragged from its spout. It had died heating virgin smoke, as it coiled in an escape to the ceiling. Seth had died, doing more or less the same thing.

Kate smiled, resting her head on the wall and breathed deeply. She snapped from her fantasy, hearing a change of song beyond the door. She shook her head in disgust; she didn’t wish death on anyone-- including Seth. There were times, however, that she would daydream elaborate fantasies where Seth died. He always went peacefully and there was no disgrace or filth in his passing. She would tend to his remains and a service –a good Christian service. She even imagined telling Richie off, banishing him from the service, if he tried to show his face. Richie would fall to his knees, sorrowfully mourning his brother, and in a final poetic climax, would come to understand the value of human life and change his ways, devoting his life to the Lord!

It was just too damn comedic-- even for Kate.

Kate dodged her peripheral reflection in the mirror. She knew she wasn’t exactly dressed-to-impress, and she could feel her hair falling in a wild mess around her face. She found that lounging about didn’t help with her perpetual state of dishevelment but she was not vain. If anything, she found comfort in the lazy life of a stowaway. Being plain and anonymous, invisible and ghostlike, were just a few of its spoils. Did anyone even know she was still alive? Had she been anything more than a temporary fixture in the lives of others? Was that all she had been created to do-- be tool to flesh out someone else’s story--  always supporting, but never the lead? She didn’t mind not being the lead, but she knew she could be more than the disposable prop she felt she had become. Kate had let the darkness in again. She forced a smile, to trick her body into thinking she was “okay.” Convincing her insides that she was anything more than “okay” was an impossibility that would unravel her guise entirely.

Kate pitched a soft hand toward the metal doorknob. Her silly nail polish, the color of forget-me-nots, had all but faded from elegant digits. Though, even in the face of the evanescence, her left ring-finger refused defeat. It flaunted the death of color in ragged streaks. Sentimentality, nonsensical and nameless, barred her from scraping off the rest. Watching the displacement of color, she coursed her fingertips up the door absentmindedly. She unlocked the flimsy latch defense with flick of her index finger. The doorknob was cold to the touch, drawing her attention to the lock and prompting her to think twice before absentmindedly forfeiting that line of defense too. After all, it was all she had to keep Seth’s cruelties at bay. Caution took a one-way-toss to the wind, as Kate opened the door.

Seth’s shoulders were broader than Kate had remembered. His body was poised in the heart of the doorway, with both arms pressed against either side of the frame. His chest was out, heaving and soaking his white shirt. Seth locked eyes with Kate. He held the silence of the pause in his ravenous smirk. There was no space for Kate to push through and she felt trapped in the face of Seth’s arrogant spatial claim. She feared a repeat of the last encounter she had had with him in the bathroom. She feared Seth’s hedonistic abandon.

“Trick or treat,” Seth winked. Kate’s eyes swept from side-to-side; as if searching for a camera that was trying to catch her response to Seth’s eccentricity. “I’m a little behind schedule.” He confessed behind a grin, he must have stolen from a fox. He teased his way further into Kate’s personal space. She was reluctant to give-way, and nearly successful too, but it was an art to Seth.

Violations of all shapes and sizes, colors and textures, were nothing but different dances to Seth. All he needed was the right partner and the right choreography; hell, the right partner similar tastes for tripping the light fantastic would be plenty. Seth knew all the steps, had all the right moves and he didn’t need a beat to keep his sway in rhythm. This put Kate, who couldn’t scheme a private piss break, at quite a disadvantage of Seth’s questionable and very illegal passions.

Seth reached for a washcloth to the side of Kate. She scooted in the opposite direction to dodge his touch. He distracted her with a step forward. His body commanded hers to press back against the sink. His tattooed arm swooped around her other side, ensnaring her form. Kate kept her face at a strong, awkward angle away from Seth’s. With his arms wrapped around her tiny waist, he turned on the faucet. She could feel him jostle the cloth under the water that steamed at her back. A rosy blush crept up her neck, around her ears and purposed themselves on her cheeks.

Seth’s expertise was narrowly unforgiving and precise. A lifetime of felonious masteries and tunnel-vision fixated around the coveted objects of his bogus sense of entitlement. From the concealment of his back pockets, he would refine the details of devastations yet to inflict his particular brand of mayhem. Seth had amassed a scrapbook of depraved and merciless inhumanities. His eyes would grow sore from focused squinting, as he thought about on payoff rather than the  _tango_  itself. Seth didn’t know any other way to process “ambition.” Especially once he acquired a Richie-esque curiosity, often wondering if he could stomach even a fraction of what he'd conjured up. Whether he possessed a weak endurance for the vile and perverse, or a constitution that mirrored Satan's very own, it made little difference to Seth if it was not on par with his brother's composure. And if anyone could give Satan a run for their money, it was Richie

“Aren’t you a little old to be trick or treating?”  
“You’re never too old to trick or treat.”  Seth replied with a hoarse confidence voice, maneuvering his neck to meet her eyes. “If anything, I’m a little too old to be tricked.” He sneered, seemingly amused by an inside joke he had with himself.

Seth’s biography would be a chronicle of illicit half-accomplishments. Though he beamed with pride at the hundreds of unsolved crimes and open cases that he inspired, it was never enough. Over roughly three decades of lawlessness, Seth had come to realize: it would never be enough. Simply put, he enjoyed being an outlaw far too much to do anything else. He found intimacy in the anonymity of crime. He knew he was a lot of things-- most of them not good-- but at least as a crook, he wasn't corrupt. In the conventional sense, that is. People knew what to expect from a man like Seth. He had his code, like all men have their code, but Seth was of the few to honor it. Seth could honor his, because he knew what being a man implied. Uncle Eddie had laid it out for Seth and Richie long before their balls had dropped or life even stopped being a game. All the same, the brothers took it to heart.  _“Police, thief, chief, or priest—don’t matter how you spell it. You’re only ever a beast or deceased.”_

Seth was certainly not deceased. In fact, he'd had nothing but time to toil with the violent ideations in his back pockets. Seth knew Richie would understand his need for a dose of mayhem but found working alone was still unsatisfying. To cope with the inadequacy of his position and abilities as a "professional" passed his prime, Seth converted his every waking thought to another vivid, violent daydream. It wasn't long before Seth began exploring the intimacy of power and brute force -however imaginary- under an erotic, red bulb that lit up his filthy mind without warning. Seth's ideas pertaining to sex and violence became the animalistic howl throttling him into a state of cruel arousal. The erotism was intolerable-- made worse by while living in such close proximity to Kate. There was no satisfaction, release or end to the agony-- not the sort he needed anyway.

The long, torturous months of unnatural lust, mania, shock, narcotics, fear, heartbreak, guilt - and everything inbetween - had him defeated. He bargained, on his knees and through desperate sobs, trading the last shred of his humanity for the chance to hold on just a little while longer, accompanied by a beast's will to survive. Seth had followed his stiffening anticipation to the wicked threshold only the Gecko brothers could see. 

Seth was going dancing and he'd be wearing Richie's shoes.

* * *

Don't get discouraged, my chickens, chapter eight is following in a chase. I know the explicit material has been pushed back by the past few chapters, but trust me when I say, **its better this way.** Things are going to get very messy and it has to be perfect. Just bear with me while I combat the completion and final edit of chapter eight. I am happy to answer questions regarding upcoming content, questions or concerns. All contact information is on my profile page.

Please don't forget my countless warnings. I trust you will all make the wise decision to avoid triggering material if necessary. I’d rather lose readers than have readers lose themselves, so please _read responsibly_. If you would prefer an edited version, ** please contact me **and I will discretely oblige. My profile page provides all the information you'll need to reach me.

I also suggest you check out the Tumblr or LiveJournal linked, as it is there you will find updates/previews/messages and contests I’ve got set up for you word nerds. Furthermore, the “soundtrack” to **The Normal One** , which will be essential in upcoming chapters (starting in chapter eight,) will be posted on both of those sites as well.


	8. Sunday School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick chapter to get the ball rolling again. Enjoy if you want. Much, much, much more coming up.

“You’re quite the domestic.” Seth noted, peering over Kate at the bathroom she kept clean. He tallied up the rest of the place. It always had a touch of her and he liked that. He too wanted that touch from her.

“Why? Because I’m a girl?”  
“No, because you managed to maintain a standard of living.” Seth glared at her, as if trying to gauge any semblance of defensiveness he wanted to evoke.  
“I just paid you a compliment.”  
“I’m sure you say that to  _all the girls_.” Kate clicked her tongue, rolling her eyes with a hokey smirk. It sent her distaste soaring into his face like a backhanded slap.  
“Says, the  _apple of my eye_.” Seth toyed with the warm, wet washcloth. He dabbed it on his lips that caked with dry blood. Kate felt an instinctive jerk to help him but resisted.  
“It doubles as a spare room or have you forgotten?” Seth didn't respond but smirked against the cloth and ran his tongue over his perfect teeth.

“You’re quite an acquired taste, Tigerlily.”  
“I think you’re just used to tasting with your nose.” Kate hinted.  
“The thing about acquired tastes, Katie Cakes, is their ability to make being devoured either a struggle or a game. It’s bittersweet that way. You become more and more desirable with each lick, and then you are winning. Other times, you have to use force to grow accustomed to the refined flavor.” Seth threw the rag carelessly to the ground. He locked his eyes on Kate and stepped forward, leading with the power of his belt buckle. He crossed his arms momentarily, and continued with one hand under his chin ironically.

“A lot of people don’t have the patience for acquired tastes like I do. They won’t trouble themselves for anything less than instant gratification. Simple minds, you understand? They fail to see the payoff. The more time your tongue explores a distinctive taste, the sweeter, more delicious and juicy it will become. It’s an indulgence one must earn… an evolving pleasure one cannot help but to crave.” He lowered his arms. Kate stood silent. She was convinced he had gone mad but there was so little space between them, she couldn’t help but try and force her way through the wall behind her. Seth hooked his middle and index fingers into the top of her boxers. He curled them under the fabric to tighten his invasiveness to her. Seth’s thumbs ever-so-lightly trailed up the front of her shirt. Kate bit the back of her cheek to keep her lips from quivering. She only hoped she was dehydrated enough to hold her tears back.

“Hell….Once that hunger has been garnered, you want for nothing else. There is no thirst or want so great, as being starved of what you’ve earned.” Seth had been eyeing her mouth greedily. His unoccupied fingers gripped her soft curves but she remained still.  
"What do you think I taste like, Kate?" There was a silence that deafened Kate and ignited Seth. His jaw was sharp and chiseled like a weapon. His shoulders lifted with each breath, and there was not much space left to be filled. He was close in the sort of way that strips one of the ability to regain their space. He was the man on a subway taking more than his share of room, with spread legs and confidence in silent contentment. He was the drill sergeant who made Vietnam look like Sunday mass to draftees. A vulture overhead, a pair of reptilian eyes that surfaced a swamp; he was Seth Gecko. The world, and everything in it, was his.

"A hangover." Kate shot back; equal parts proud and terrified. Seth let go of Kate. She exhaled into the comforting space.

“Don’t be so stiff, little girl—that’s my job.” He went backwards out the door and returned to the direction of the common area. Kate wanted to slam the door behind him, lock it, bolt it, board it-- weld it shut if she could. He had certainly crossed lines before but he was entering new territory with the physicality of his theatrics.

Kate composed herself, straightened her hair and splashed water in her face. She reached for a cloth to dry off but it was lying in a damp bunch on the floor where Seth had tossed it. She lifted the front of her shirt and patted her face dry.

She lowered her shirt to see Seth glaring at her from outside the bathroom. His hands were full of anything that could get him lifted. "Wet’s a good look for you."  
"Get out of my way!" Kate dodged out the door, half expecting Seth to lunge forward and box her in the small space with his build. Seth smirked; it was obvious he had done another line of something while she was composing herself, as his eyes were freshly glazed and he struck at the bottom of his nose with fingers that shook.

"I have a treat for you." Seth "A game, in fact-- it's been a while since we played with each other--"  
"I'm not playing any games, Seth. Just let me be." Kate sputtered in exhaustion and sat on her bed with her back facing Seth. She flipped through a small stack of paper, writings, napkins, but nothing of significance-- as if trying to convince herself she was too busy to indulge him.  
"I'm not asking." Seth was matter-of-factly exhaling law Kate wanted no part of.  
"I said _no_. N-O." Kate felt the blow of Seth's advance, as he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her backward on the bed. He lunged up the side and sprawled the contents of his party favors evenly across the bedspread. Kate's attempts to protest were thwarted by her shock and confusion. She made meek sounds of discomfort and near-sobs and squirmed under the eldest Gecko.

"You're a natural," Seth exclaimed quite taken by her movements. He popped off the caps to two prescription bottles. Kate clenched her mouth shut and turned her head away. She pushed against Seth's weight with all her limbs and strength but he only moaned out bits of laughter and smirks. "Open-- open up! Open your pretty, little, fucking mouth, Kate..." He baited her like a dog and she held her mouth shut in defiance. "Show me what you learned behind the church." He suggested with a wink in his eye. "Oh, now she's modest! I'll just have to show you a trick of my own then, huh?" He poured a few of each in his mouth and something wicked in the pit of his being was tamed a villainous laugh. "Never did this in a church but that never stops it from gettin' biblical."

His body crashed down on hers, nearly knocking the air from her lungs. He swept upon her with his greedy mouth effortlessly. It started off as a devilish grin and his perfect teeth colliding with her a fraction of a moment before she was fully enveloped. Still, it was not so much of a kiss-- rather, a power strike and direct hit at that. Kate was shocked. Her mouth went slack and sore from the violence of his assault. The clash of his full lips on hers was fiercely rough and hungry. He parted her lips with his tongue and used the full of his jaw to motion his brute intensity deep within her mouth. It was warm and lingering, and she circled under his seductive, sweep mindlessly. Kate was captured by the flick of his tongue and lips that motioned savagely around hers. He broke the contact suddenly but dragged his teeth along her bottom lip, now swollen sleek with blood. He had begun bleeding again, but so had Kate. She was ashamed and petrified. He leaned up on his palms staring down at her. She wanted to cry but for all the wrong reasons. The bruising, heated sensation mated deeply between them was throbbed with the linger truth that Kate had accepted Seth-- or rather, accepted his claim to her. She hadn't even noticed the pills which slid down her throat.

"I bet you speak in tongues, don't you?"

Seth did not taste like a hangover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive rewrite I can finally live with is on its way to anyone still out there. Had to split up some chapters -- as I mentioned -- to really pack a punch. Now that it's all settled, you'll get the brunt of Seth's perversity and violence in Chapter 9 and 10 and hopefully learn to live with it because I don't believe in fluff and non-con/dub-con. Be warned. Insane amount about to be put up, so hope you don't mind chapter binging. Sorry for the delay-- if you only knew! As you can see... we're ever so slowly slipping over the cliff here. Needless to say, Kate's pretty fuqqed.


	9. Locked and Loaded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quickly uploading an inch forward. Next two chapters already saved to the draft section but still testing waters.

“Can you feel that? It’s getting harder.” Seth no longer tried hiding behind a false bravado; he’d proven himself a brave violator. “I can feel it. You’re going to feel real good, real soon. I’ll look after you, Bambi.” A tear escaped Kate’s blurring eyes. Seth tenderly wiped it with the back of his fingers. “I want you to enjoy this as much as I will.” He continued to stroke her cheek, casually running his fingers through her hair.

Nobody had ever touched her in any way—not even close to the way he did. His mannerisms were unscripted and despite his prowess, he seemed wild with curiosities and eagerness. He was an adolescent waiting for someone to react to setting a cat on fire. Seth had never been so transparently unhinged. Moreover, he had never seemed more natural and at one with himself. He had found El Rey in his skull and made himself at him with his wonders.

Kate struggled sporadically, with little coordination and found herself winded by a locked fist to the gut several times. Seth did not tire; he held her down as the drugs took hold in stages. “The body can only say ‘no’ for so long, tiger. You don’t need to be ready. It’ll rail you quickly but I’ll take my time.” Kate wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t. Her body was being taken from within. Seth was right: she could feel it getting harder to fight off—to ignore. The new sensations were strangely longed for. Kate feared so much of what she could not put into words.

“It doesn’t have to be scary, sweetheart. This is the fun part. Give yourself what you want—what you need. There’s nothing like it. Scratch that, there is one thing that contends for first place but we’ll dry those tears later.” The heat of Seth’s satisfaction beat down on her. She could feel his presence more than she could feel him. He wanted a reaction—a reason to pounce. Kate could not quite understand what she wanted. She tried screaming once. Seth clamped a large palm over her mouth and nose. He was faster than she, and so much stronger. Her veins throbbed and windpipe contracted for air. Seth savored his mounted composure. His eyes bore deep into Kate’s and where traces of fury had once dwelled, a tormenting glare both carnivorous and regal now resided.

“Try it again and I fuck hallelujah down your throat.” Kate whimpered into the release of his palm. He pulled away slowly, fingers tracing the shape of her lips and dipping a thumb on her warm tongue. He cleared his throat, shifting himself over her slim frame. His fingers clawed down her throat in a slow drag that tempted his frustrations. As a professional, his word was his bond and he eyed her quivering lips and porcelain skin with a lust that begged for her scream again.

Kate pressed her thoughts to God. Seth watched her hungrily. He was a dog waiting to be fed his prize after a winning fight. Kate was swimming through half-remembered prayers and memories she couldn’t keep straight. Time had become a blur but it hadn’t taken long for her heart to pick up its pace and body fall into an uncomfortable comfort.

“Can I ask you something?” Seth was cordial, tilting his head with genuine befuddlement.  
Though Kate remained silent, unwilling to vocalize even a steep breath, Seth waited for her response. They glared back and forth at one another. His head tilted to the other side. He even took to a straddle that seemed less intimidating; going so far as to rest his fists against his belt loops. Long moments passed and two minutes into silence, Seth broke. "You don't have to say yes, I can find out on my own." Kate did not speak but widened her eyes slightly in approval.  
"You ever _seen one_?" Seth was clinical and sincere. "Family doesn't count though I'd be interested to know more." Kate shifted her eyes, clenching her jaw tightly and shook her head from side to side. Seth nodded eyes wide with visible intrigue.  
“Call me impressed.” Kate shook disgust from her face.  
“So it’s safe to say you’ve never felt one—maybe over the clothes, dry fucking to the Gospel According to Loopholes? Again, no family.” She didn’t bother looking at up at him, and instead laid her head back and shook it to answer ‘no.’  
“Do you want to?” Kate shook her head again. “You aren’t curious at all? Seeing or feeling—merely for the sake of science or the whole _rite of passage_ deal?” Her head shook.  
“Batter up! It’s time we get you outta the dugout, sister.” Seth shifted his body weight back down on her. One leg resting between hers but it was oddly respectful given the topic at hand.

“I would have asked about your sexuality but it’s really no business of mine and certainly doesn’t make a lick’a difference. Not to mention, you and baby brother forgot to leave a sock on the whore. Ever wonder where that would have gone?” Kate didn’t respond. “Sure you do. Wow, you really can pick ‘em, little lady.”

Kate was seething.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is…Well, it’s an honor.” His arrogance and vulgarity had tried her patience. Seth was not only tormenting the only thing she had left, but went for the kill with a jab about Richie.  
“I’ve never been someone’s first—anything—before. You’ve got me flustered, Cupkate.”  
“You said “no family” though.” Kate’s voice shocked Seth with amusement.  
“Well, doesn’t that just beat all? I did call it though, didn’t I? Kid wore a black Goddamn hat, laying rail home on the range. Didn’t peg you for the Chink-kink though. Not that there’s anything wrong with take-out.” Seth lay comfortably and satisfied. He could have kept going but there was a time and place for overkill, and it wasn’t over an undead Chinaman.  
“I thought you meant yourfamily.” Seth was good, but Kate was better; and it was Kate who lay comfortably now, with Seth seething.

Kate was pulled by different sensations, struggling for the most supreme lift. There was nothing left to lose. If it hadn’t been taken from her already, it was in the works. Seth on the other hand was at an impasse. Overkill would be preferable but he didn’t want to appear as if he had something to prove. He smiled sweetly at Kate. There was a true admiration for her moxie. Then again, he had given fair warning that he could find out what he wanted on his own.

“Do you like surprises? I don’t like surprises.” Seth spoke coolly, looking away while playing mindlessly with Kate’s hair.

“I think it’s only fair I tell you a little of what’s on the menu for tonight. But not too much.” Seth lit a cigarette and blew it in Kate’s face. She tightened her expression to keep away the smell. “You’ve got something I want. I take the things I want.”

Devastating tension provoked a primitive charge of boldness. His hard length pressed against the fabric of his pants. Seth rolled his hips along the inside of Kate’s leg.

“The things I tell you to do—you’re going to wish you thought of them. You won’t feel that way in the morning. You’re going to bleed. I’m going to cum. You’re going to break yourself.”

Seth pushed off the bed and planted his feet firmly on the floor. Kate inched nearer the other side of the bed, but Seth grabbed her by the ankle and effortlessly pulled her body toward his post. He let her leg fall and nudged the other with his knee so it would follow suit. Kate tried to sit up on the bed but before she could make it to her elbows, Seth had knocked her back onto the mattress. Seth grabbed hold of his aching mast, he massaged it without shame. He had no intention of attaining release but the throbbing in his hands only stood to make him more frustrated.

A tightening arose in Kate’s stomach at the sight but fear was far more penetrating.

“I killed your family. I stole your life. All I had to do was hold a weapon to you.” His body tensed, shoulders tightening as he stroked himself ever so slowly. Kate tried to push backward, keeping her body locked. Seth’s thighs were heating with a pleasurable anguish and pull in his stomach. He had to slow himself. There was far too much damage he had longed to take place. He stepped forward, knocked Kate’s knee with his to spread enough for his thigh to slide between hers. He lowered his body onto her once more, his swell upon the apex of her thighs. He thrust a grind into her, she shivered. The pressure upon her most sensitive pride, Seth exhaled a laughing moan from his throat, aligning his face with hers. The cigarette burned between his lips, heat Kate could not distance herself from.

“Well, there’s a weapon on you now, Kate. You feel it too—getting harder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More coming. Next two chapters already saved to drafts, but the darker it gets, the more draining it becomes. I cannot stress enough how much this fic is not a hurt/comfort that makes everything okay. The upcoming depictions of violence made me uncomfortable, and so I continue to warn readers of potential triggers. Love you all, my duckies, so get ready for some nightmares!


	10. Philippians 3:2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kate's thoughts may confuse many of you-- especially if you are not familiar with drug usage. No matter, it will come together.

There was a stench of smoke and an abrupt pain that seared into the side of Kate’s left thigh. Seth had put his cigarette out on her flesh, the long ember taking its time to extinguish. She barely moved. He scooped up both of her legs from under the knee and threw them back on the bed before crossing the room and leaning against the wall. She wasn’t going anywhere but he was going to make her scream. Besides, he wanted some mood music.

Kate’s tricky mind gave her the feeling she was back at the Dew Drop Inn. Richie had seen her there, exposed: hurting and fearful. Seth was rabid, performing for himself, like a ballerina locking eyes with their reflection. Seth could dance, Kate thought to herself.

“There’s so much to do and plenty of time. But I promise: you’re going to know what it’s like to be fucked. What it’s like to have a man inside you. Not just any man though—the Big Bad, you’re daddy warned you about--Revelations. You’re going to hate how much you love it.”

Seth was the escaped shadow of a school girl crush she’d long forgotten about. Fragmented images of Seth scattered through her mind. The foolish girl she once was had millions of snapshots of Seth. His laugh—his real laugh; the one he let out when he wasn’t anyone but himself. The endearing aftershock of chuckling that followed. He’d catch his breath later, order another round of drinks and hide a smile behind his. His blushing face—skin that looked so warm and anxious but his smile was resting cheerfully. It was poised and genuine, and warm in a poised smile. Hollywood-like, serious with intent but not with himself, his smile aligned the way his hands danced freely as he spoke with them for emphasis.

There had been something there once. Not love, no—never love, but a kinship. There had been trust. A mutual agreement, at the very least. As the tender images of Seth were forced from her mind, distorted into scary caricatures, so went the reel of moments that told of every decline in their bond.

Kate’s lips were numbing, and tongue was bored. She had a strange wanting to scream or use her elbows for something. She wanted to move freely. Her skin was too tight. She wanted to cry. She wanted physicality. Her teeth felt disenfranchised with nothing to bite. Every second of restraint gave way to her defenses and care. Her tongue wanted to move and play. The room was cranky. It needed more little lights. She wanted to smash the walls with her fists; she wanted to them to crumble like a sand castle Scott used to live in. She wanted her bones to bleed like stabbing knives.

Where was her father-- his prayers and comfort she needed so terribly. There was no love in this place. There was love nowhere. She wasn’t anyone anymore. No ties, connections or family to anchor her faith. Her prayers were jumbled and knotted in her brain. She felt weak with bouts of elation. False bravery and disorientation, and her big mouth had gotten her in deeper shit—who had she becoming?

Kate lay still but her toes curled. There was a euphoria building and a fury that made her want to get rough and purged of the pain she had inside. She wanted more. Her body writhed from within but not in the way she wanted. She moved her shoulders in a slow roll against the cruddy mattress. They felt new to her. She reached down to the fresh burn on her thigh and dug into it with a breathy exhale.

What had he done to her? She wanted to feel something; something real, not what was bracing and in riddles. Something wasn’t right. She needed the cowboy to get her off that bed. The voice taunted her hijacked senses. “I can do so much more for you.” A rogue hand clasped her by the jaw, it bullied her flushed face to look forward. Her resistance was futile. Tingles of movement from her face to the back of head distracted from the fingers wrapping themselves in her hair. He yanked her backwards and her throat shot up to face the ceiling. It was a violent for the sake of violence. Somewhere laughed. She was only a ragdoll, after all. “Later I’ll do more to you.”

Kate felt the warmth of the hand cradling her head, and it was the closest thing to okay she’d known in months. She smiled and the room went silent.

Christmas lights-- they had to be _authentic_ _Christmas_. If they were color changing, the room would be happier to stop all that sad racket. It was stuck in her head now, like soap in her eyes. She saw in perfect smell, the kitchen dancing and remembered every word. She could cry along if she wanted but the last time she blinked and her parents had already finished the show. Where had this mind-river been hiding? Everything was a gem; seamless and coded to her. She spun her own language and was itchy on the inside like static. Seth continued to rattle on: puppet pulling his own strings because everyone else went to away from her. Kate’s inside-insides were crying the angriest rains and still, someone drained the pool. She couldn’t prove who because her glasses were gone.

“I know you’ve thought about this. What it would be like… It’s natural and nothing to be ashamed about. You’ve wanted it for so long. To be touched, to make the madness stop. I can fill the emptiness—I can make you feel whole. Maybe you didn’t know what it was you craved but I did. Let me show you.” His fingers trailed upward with steadfast patience. “You’ll want to be whole at least once.” Seth had grown furious with the silence when he knew her mind was so far away. Not even the taunt of his intentions stirred her. She had to be won—she had to make herself the whore. His patience was wearing thin but you can’t rush art.

“Katie…” Lips swept across with gentle modesty. Her name drifted down her neck in a humble whisper. It sounded foreign or incomplete without the vulgarity of a pet name smirking. She heard a breath of air exhale with defeated sentimentality. It was the exhale of that could not utter all that needed to be said.

“Kate, please…” The impossible silk of long-lost severity beckoned Kate dreamily. The absolute clarity was a melding of politician-precision eloquence and a timid outcast—unapologetic and unarmed. He regarded her with a coolness of reserved understanding and depth. The unspoken respect remained unspoken. The taste of hope lingered with cruel nostalgia. She shifted away from Seth’s persuasive lying. She knew her undoing would be in having to look into either brother’s eyes.

“I know you feel it; I know you feel everything.” Richie’s voice remained, hiding Seth’s intentions. “I want you to feel me too.”  Course fingers dragged down her thigh and circle at her knee. Her skin felt like glitter and velvet. Everything he said made sense because she could understand nothing. There was only touch and a haze of dreamlike musings.

 “I want to cum inside you--” The possessive body weighting against her dying struggle smelled like Seth, felt like Seth and moved like Seth but the lack of calamity in his tone was Richie. She pictured him in her mind, remembering his strangeness, and his predatory distance that lured her farther from herself. The fixation in her mouth was just too distracting and frankly dishonest with that true world. She couldn’t take suits seriously, it wasn’t Sunday even… Why didn’t Seth just go already-- his funeral started decades ago!

“You don’t have to be shy.” Seth had begun to wrestle with his own rising torment. “There’s no one else here. It’s just you and me. It’ll always be that way, Kate.” Seth could feel his own tension heightening. Her silence left him wounded but admittedly, he had been rather forward. Seth wanted Kate’s approval, now feeling inadequate. He should not have brought up Richie. Seth just wanted to hear her voice lose itself to his pharmaceuticals. He wanted to know her every thought. He wanted her to relax. He wanted her body to feel everything and he wanted to feel her under him when she did. He hoped it would kill her.

“Let me in.” Richie’s voice trickled a longing for compliance down her bizarre consciousness. “It’s better this way. No one can accuse you of being weak-- you fought too. I’ve fought hard too, you know. No one would blame you.” Richie was right. Even if it wasn’t Richie—

Seth pulled himself out of the tangle Kate's struggle had required. He rolled on his back, one hand tightening around her hair. Kate inhaled heavily and her eyes shot open. She was less disoriented with her vision not fixed on eyelid slideshows. “I’m surprised nothing happened sooner. We both wanted it. Maybe you didn’t even know what it was you wanted exactly, but your body still craved it.”

The music began playing; it had come with such delay. It was not the song she heard from the bathroom. “Just call me Angel…” Kate mumbled to Seth’s surprise.  
“There is no endearment more befitting.”

“of the morning Angel—just touch my cheek—” Seth obeyed, caressing her cheek and sliding his hand under her top, slyly attempting to pull it off.

“—before you leave me.” Seth halted. He watched Kate absentmindedly sing. She was hoarse but it was still sweet and a pang of guilt slugged him in the gut. As if, he had been reminded of who he was and what he was doing. His tattoo was burning under his skin: snapping him back into the morning. “Mama—” a tear slid down Kate’s cheek once more. She knew the song because her mother would sing it to her. Her father would grab hold of her waist and twirl her in the kitchen and Kate would watch lovingly.

Seth glared back at the speakers. They played no such song, nor did he remember it playing the once Kate sang. Kate lifted her hand and ran her fingertips down Seth’s lips as her turned back to face her. He was shocked. Her eyes were dilated, blurring but fixed on Seth.  

“It’s been eating me alive—painfully—for so long. You don’t want to hurt me, do you?” Kate didn’t know what hurt was anymore.  
“Where are your glasses?” She asked childlike. Seth was enraged. Kate knew he was not Richie, but she was beginning to see more than what she had before.

“ _Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.”_ _She spoke with an eerie clarity._

_Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan began playing, just as a cruel fist mad impact with her face._

Kate had been forsaken since that day by the pool, where a strange, despicable man threaded himself into her soul.

At last, an advantage.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Song List~  
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan


	11. Faithfully, Fireforged

Once upon a time, a fire had been set to the world. The flames spread across the All of whom Kate thought she was. Everyone was scorched and gone. No one had survived, nothing could be recovered. All but Kate had been incinerated, shielded by the heavy slumber of adolescence. The dreams and weak memories remained-- exposed longings forever out of reach. All the time Kate had spent in search of what used to be, had just been the wandered ambling of a little girl.

Kate had haunted herself and called it faith. There was no entanglement with destruction. She knew her parents were dead but it was not until the ash settled that she realized she had become a true orphan. Somewhere in the blindness of her grief and the wait for salvation, she’d lost her prayers and their credence. They were a candle flickering in wait for a Father’s return. They were just words now; as the covenant of salvation was a pile of wasted candle nubs.

Kate relinquished the bond of every promise she could recall. A ransom paid to end the torment of hope. She surrendered the enchantment of the blessed and in return received the curse of truth.

Fire rages because it must. A force of immense strength and all-consuming might. It brands, sears, blisters, chars, kill and scars. All the ruin left in its wake is a casualty of circumstance. Nature is no cruel beast. It thrives to give warmth. It combats the darkness and purifies. It is the rebirth of a phoenix, the fleeting trophy of Earth. Ever on the run, it destroys what it must for survival beyond itself. Two sides to a coin you want to keep but never spend.

The darkness had never left Kate, though she held her own in the shadows. She would not perish there. She battled the world of the Dead for the lives of others, and herself. Thriving amongst the living would never be the same. She could never again be impartial, or stagnant. Anything less was unnatural. The lone survival of anyone is always bittersweet but Kate’s was especially bitter. Alone, Kate had nowhere for her warmth to comfort or light to bring about hope. Fight had been in her always, but she was brave because she had to be. Her kin had needed her and she needed them equally. Kate was destroyed in the dark labyrinth beneath the Twister but in the midst of the massacre, she was reborn: blood-soaked and steadfast.


	12. Old Yeller

Inertia peddled through small days. Heavy hours stacked like crooked bricks. Each filthier than the last, designed to fall and scheduled for demolition. The desired severity of destruction was a barefoot amble atop the broken hourglass of inevitability. Cursed—terrorized—typical of _some_ Hotel California. Cabin fever, curiosity and inexperience, wild with anarchy and the promise of broken-promises was all such four falls could contain.

Kate was incapable of fighting off the strange. No matter how violent the violation or violating the violence. That which is evil has no keeper.

True to her nature, hope lingered—crippling Kate with the most damaging abuse and trumping senses far greater than any drug, touch or scheme could ever be for her.

 Time passed, as if it hadn’t meant to show at all. Caught by the unforgiving seconds and moments, clarity was an intrusion. Suddenly, the present was exposed for its impermanence. The interests of time, thought fleeting, were soured by such awareness. Hands moving behind the glass shine of a stolen Rolex kept track of each cheapened. Seth’s hands, spattered with blood, booze and sweat were more valuable now than his expensive tastes had ever allowed.

Kate melded with the nothingness of shock—her life: a tea party crashed by hot-blooded, convicts. Too polite to make them leave and too scared to ask them to stay. Above all, it had been by invitation only, and she had been too timid and bashful to remind herself of a strength of company only a lady possesses. Flickers of half-truths, the myth of weakness had granted her villains pause to delight in the easy pickings. And truth be told, she lost respect for the choice of targets the Gecko brothers had set their sights on. Survival mode was one thing, and part of her could even grant them justification for the kidnapping, but what was being taken by Seth then was not hers to justify. She believed this. Once.

Unconsciousness cradled the nightmare of a very real overtaking. The dreamy-limbo was bruising and out of place. They belonged to the fevers and cold-sweats of the sick. Such seamless disorientation leapt Noon into 2AM leaving behind that very distinct feeling of having missed something important. Abandon-all-hope: another day and a half’s surrender, blooms wild distress and intrigue in the haze of a lucid dream that bargained with the devil and became fantasies and hate and hate for those fantasies. There was a courage stirring in the drug rattling belly of Kate. A freedom, an open-mindedness—an itch to see for herself, once and for all, what she was made of. Of course, she had to explore. Her endurance was her only ally and she didn’t have time for anymore weakness.

“No more games.” Seth’s decree came from his core. It dripped off his tongue in a velvet-purr, hardly sounding like words at all. “Say the words.”

White knuckles knotted a privileged chasten around a throat that had never known desperation. A futile protest of flailing limbs unsure of what to do erupted from _her_ pathetic body. Seth’s large hands tightened a throttling collar while the rest of him domineered Kate’s waiflike frame. He had driven himself furious wondering how she would beg and plea, and cry and struggle—how should would do _anything_ at all.

Seth was not known for his patience.

Striking the air from Kate’s bruised torso, disinterested in how she would have tried to reason with him, he twisted a sharp knuckle between two ribs. He felt challenged to pursue, to snap the delicate _thing_ and skull-fuck the bones into ash.

“Genesis 2:22…” Seth hissed between his teeth. Kate’s side was on fire but still it was his breathy closeness which distracted her into a great unease she had to believe no pain could ever surpass.

Seth’s unyielding noose of his long, killing fingers dangled life and death before bulging eyes, as he wrapped them in prayer around Kate’s delicate throat. A blue-lipped mouth clacked ajar and bit at the open space. Seth had never strangled anyone before—not to death, anyway. Richie would was more inclined to take the time and truly enjoy his work. He would pause to step back, admire and experiment. Seth never afforded himself that luxury. To him it was much simpler—and even though his tactics never stood out as his brother’s sexual-psychopathic art did, as it projected Hell from an imagination so vast it seemed to devour the constitutions of witnesses—maybe just to keep running.

Seth had humbled ingenuity and stomach for gratuitous violence. He wanted in, he wanted to do the job and he wanted out. It was safer that way. Richie was a shameless tourist in their bloody line of depraved employment.  They had both together killed, maimed and incinerated buildings of people, leveling towns to scared easy-pickings. The flightless mess he bruised under him was just another one of the disposable many. He watched the blood vessels burst in her eyes, tearing and pink as they rolled in the back of her head. He regarded the mouth with idle curiosity. Transfixed by the default protocol the body authorized to combat Death.  There was no super strength and there was no agility. There was fear. The floundering heap of limbs slowed their spastic dance. Seth listened closely to see if the oxygen would make a noise as the rest of it dragged from her body. The sight was pathetic. The body had no capability for self-preservation at all. Still, the slacking jaw twitched and jerked a plea in a tantrum Seth could only note as potentially demonic.

“Say it.” Seth's words penetrated with an all-consuming severity, falling in a hot exhale onto Kate’s blue lips. His smooth tone was dangerously-stoic. It chilled the room with a false calmness Kate wish she had never come to recognize.

The halting desperation of the brutality evoked a greater threat than any set of hands could have. It was an eerie personality that slithered with thrumming hatred at the core of his chest. Promising further torment and evils spouted from Hellfire springs, Kate feared the break of her will. Survival would be her punishment for her obedience.

Kate had made peace with her waking life and was eager to retire Home, to her family. She would bravely face her judgment and know that what befell her at the hands of Seth Gecko would have no bearing on everlasting soul.

Seth relaxed his grip just enough for Kate to hitch a painful pocket of air back into her distressed lungs. He kept his eyes fixed on hers; smacking her face back into a mutual gaze, each time she turned or jerked away. His strapping build was overkill to the predatory cold-bloodedness that had been seething beneath his suave, hot-shot exterior.

Tears, blood and liquor pooled around Kate’s brutalized body. A few stray pills lying not far from her face were more tempting than she wish they were. The pain was nearly unbearable – but only nearly. Only _ever_ nearly. 

She choked on hot, sticky air. The stench was as unforgiving as the night she had somehow survived. Hank Williams sandThe walls of the room were closing in on her. She felt an imprint of the night stare back at her from the ceiling, replaying every indignity and violation the criminal had ruined her with.

Kate’s body trembled against the filthy mattress, with her eyes zoned-out into Seth’s. Straddling the apex of her bare thighs, Seth basked in the afterglow of his vile works. The tension that ached firm against the curves dipping from the girl’s hipbones had thrilled him into a heated spasm. An involuntary buck against her pained form followed, seeking her attention. He watched her bottom lip quiver. He wanted to sink his teeth into it. He wanted it around his stiffened pride, shy and warm, and still wet with blood from an unforgiving backhand.

Seth pressed with the deep, slow grind of a skill lover against her. Half of him hoped she’d continue her silence, as he would happily enjoy a round two with the girl. The other half grew impatient, pained and increasingly sinister in wanting to finish what he had started.

Unleashing the stranglehold only intensified his urges to continue. It was then he knew, as well as Kate did, that he had decided to _keep her_. She was the greatest toy he ever had. He would never have to share her and no one could take her away. It had all gone so perfectly wrong. The excitement had yet to dissipate from the hours of indulgent sadism. As far as he was concerned, it was all foreplay up till then.

Kate struggled to breathe. Her fingers trembled. Adrenaline and Seth’s narcotic cocktail rattled about her senses. She stared up at him. What had he become? Had he always been this? As his uncle had said “You’re either a beast or deceased…” Kate thought once more on just what that meant. For all intents and purposes, Richie was very much deceased: he was of the undead, sure, but most of all he was gone. He was just _gone_. Like an owner who dies and leaves behind a vicious dog whose sole reason for being was to protect and follow their owner. That had seemed to be the dynamic initially. But staring up at Seth, his eyes wild and alive, his tattoo glistening under sweat and blood matted in his hair and against his face… Kate could see none of the Seth she knew. Though beastly in his mount, he was now, for all intents and purposes: very much _gone_.

The silence broke at the same time as her heart. Seth's teeth seemed to near her throat, as if to tear a the flesh from her brutalized throat. He winced quickly and even more quickly glanced at the tattooed arm before pressing his ear and shoulder together. He smirked the irritation away but his right-arm's grip seemed to weaken on Kate's shoulders he kept pinned to the bed. She could try and flail again, granted, he had vanished from his own skull and was likely just to put a bullet in hers if she made his night more difficult. There was no turning back from and he’d see to that.

Seth had great plans for the duo and he really wanted to play his game. If she wanted to live, she would have to play too. She was his challenge, anyway.

The words tripped out of her mouth, sacrilegious and sour. Her voice was horse but she did her best to soften it, going so far as to cock her head back and gaze her stoned eyes right back into his. Games, after all, were meant to be won.

“Bless me---- _Father_ \------ for I have sinned….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Song List~  
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams


	13. Superstar

 There was a moment of peace Kate stole, laying on the soiled carpet; her head spinning from the heaviness hanging in the air. She clenched at the torn fabric of her top, folding her arm like a wing over her tender ribcage. She could see Seth standing across the room with his back to her, fiddling with something on the short dresser they shared. A not yet defeated thigh pushed against the floor trying to make its great escape. She winced in pain, biting down on her swollen bottom lip. There was a snicker heard across the room, cut off by the fresh music. It wasn’t hard to tell Seth had been setting the scene. He adored his audience composed of only himself. But his theatrics though curious were distinctive of him.

            Kate rested the side of her face on the inside of her outstretched arm. She flicked her fingers against the matted carpeting, desperately trying to gain traction with throttled body and Seth who’d yet to tired.

“You know this song?” Seth blew the stench of his cigarette over his shoulder.

“It’s a classic.” Seth cooed. Kate couldn’t respond. Her eyes rolled around her skull and she couldn’t tell if it was the concussion or the blood that kept her from seeing clearly.

“This is the remake. The original came out in 1969 by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell but everyone thinks that it was actually the Carpenters in '71. And why not? Carly had a voice like everyone’s mother in church.” He took another drag from his cigarette. “This version here is Sonic Youth. A personal favorite. Richie can’t stand it. Prefers the Luther Vandross but then again, so does Luther Vandross.”

            Kate nearly played dead. She held still and silent, holding her breath to quell the wheezing. She had no desire to cry and something inside told her was because she’s was already dead. She didn’t mind dying at that point. She knew what lay ahead of her was far worse than any death or nightmare from the Titty Twister.

“She’s had a lot of hands on her. The song I mean. Cher did her; and Joe Cocker. Hell, even Bette Midler gave us a taste on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson back in ‘70. I wasn’t born yet of course but I did catch the Dogstar version. You know Dogstar? Rock band with that Hawaiian vampire from The Matrix playing the triangle or the sort.” Seth turned up the volume, sucking the cancer from his cigarette. He filled the air with nonsense through a tone that made the dark lullaby even more mesmerizing.

“The first time I heard this song it made me sick. Was at a roadhouse in Tallahassee playing pool with some locals. Up ‘round $600 with no hustle or timeclock. Fellas were nice enough. Indulged my brother who kept ordering these specialty sludge cocktails that no amount of booze was gonna save.” Seth spoke to the open nothing, recounting the memory as if it were the single most significant testimony he’d ever speak.

A dead lament escaped him. Kate knew where Seth’s mind had found itself. The thought of Richie had Seth swatting the back of his reddened neck and jerking it rapidly, as if trying to shake the grief from behind his ears. Kate listened to Seth recount his truths and filtered it through the lack of empathy that hung at her own ears. She had no interest in listening to whatever cheap bar tale would become a mock-eulogy. As far as she was concerned, the only datum even rival an attempt to even the playing fields of what she felt, was the fact that Seth had suffered loss too. Richie was good and gone in more ways than a person could ever be gone. Still, the manner in which Seth ghosted before Kate, and drifted to elsewhere, it was easy to see that Richie had become the phantom limb responsible for his drowning.

“He’d downed the Kool-Aid a’ this queer, yuppie, antioxidant trend. Started carrying around a pomegranate-broccoli-pinecone stew. Kept it in the World’s ugliest thermos. Swear to God that thing was bottomless.”  

Kate was without a retention of pity for Seth. She knew the hurt of losing a brother but for Seth there was nothing. She could no longer be gracious, nor fully hold him accountable. He had lost all appeal. Up until that day, Seth’s mania had always manage to be peppered the semblance of humanity. Kate had been able to forgive and even forget his outbursts because of it. Truth be told, they had never been meant for her exclusively or come remotely close to targeting the more delicate facet of being. Until it did. Until it was all a cause for her to be hunted.

"Rich even tried glopping it into his flask a few times. Nearly drove off a road watching him plop the crap down its spout. Didn’t go more than a few blinks before getting a tequila bath.”

Kate fumed on the floor, immobilized. Nothing was what it was supposed to be. She couldn’t miss her family there. Not when it was Seth’s charm, charisma, concern and coolness she’d watch decompose for months. The godsend reprieves once deflected the aftershock dangers but now they aimed for the bullseye he saw in her.

“Stank like a trashcan prom baby. Even made me miss his dainty espressos.” Seth paused, finally looking up and spinning his body to face Kate. He eyeballed her pensively and furrowed his brows, drawing his anecdote to a close.

I never asked him how he was able to keep down all those abominations. I guess I’ll never know.”

There was a canyon of unfamiliarity which echoed with their deteriorating communication. It provoked indifference until that manifested into something more sinister. Seth’s rage spoke a different tongue than Kate’s silence; but his raw charms has always translated flawlessly. However fortunate, it was still no permanent solution. Bone-deep anguishes and throats sore from tightening around the hitch of a sob, surfaced in an instant. Seth’s distractions and Kate’s constant pardons turned. Every sentiment expressed muddied the airwaves an incomprehensible tongue of subtext. Seth was henceforth, out of control.

Seth knew he’d only ever kept from cracking for Kate. He’d gambled with his defeat like a Vegas frat boy keeping the remnants of a trust fund tucked in his shoe. He’d gone so long in the role of the impenetrable Seth Gecko that he’d forgotten how high the stakes were. The inevitability of his pride wavering had left him owing all he had left that was decent.

“Anyway, this song came on. Caught half of it before the radio went static. But it stuck with me. Stuck with me all the way to here and now.”

The smooth criminal had never grieved before. He had never been scared before. He didn’t understand it, he didn’t like it, and he didn’t want it. Most of all, he dreaded the audience Kate had become; no matter how unwilling. She witnessed him when he no longer could. In time, he traded the glint in his eye for a newfound dead beauty.

“It’s called: Superstar.”

Devoid of compassion for Seth, Kate felt a particular something-awful for Richie. Fire of pure hatred searing at her core. Seth was never the sort to walk away from violence with a smile but Richie was. She’d favored him once but could only resent him now. Both in his absence and his influence. Whatever had become of Seth was sure to gift her a Hell worthy of Lucifer’s applause. Kate only hoped he was taking notes for Richie.

***

The chorus swelled in beauty. Its blue longing that climaxed with tragedy flushed Seth, as if it were the first time hearing the whole way through. He jutted his shoulders, starring down at Kate. A mannerism he would have utilized to convey adorability and curry favor with whomever he was with. But he had no favor with Kate. She remembered the humiliation of consenting to his game. It was under duress but that never stopped a Gecko from cashing in.

The game was called “Penance.” A spinoff of the drinking game Seth bullied Kate and her family into playing, Penance was also founded on the concept of confessions. Though Seth had a deeper connection to the game, it was equally as much Kate’s brain baby.

The fascination with the sport did not originate from a dark place, rather a place of concern and solidarity. Before the spirit had mutated into a menacing exploitation of trauma, it was an exercise in healing. It was an outlet which replaced the need for intentional chaos and self-destruction. It was Kate who first faced her demons, and Seth who held her hand through it.

Kate’s turbulence paled in comparison to the human warzone that became of Seth. There was once a time when he had the sense and tenderness to be the hero. Kate was a reckless flirt with catastrophe. She toyed with men, none of which laden with good intentions. She indulged in the fastness of life, trying to get it over with quickly. The concept of the law was a fairytale. The night made it easier to sway Seth into playing “Cool Uncle.” He approached her like the adult she had to be but could only see her as the girl he’d stolen a charmed youth from.

Kate expanded her curiosities to enthusiasms and took to exploring her newfound emancipation with wanton disregard. Seth stood by watchfully as she matured too quickly for his comfort. She was beautifully untamed. She was an honest drunk which is the equivalent of standing naked before the big, bad world and telling it to “get fucked.” She could talk the talk and walk it when she wasn’t stumbling, but it was in the moments without audience that Seth would see Kate as Kate again.

Kate was humble, never aware of the eyes on her, including Seth’s. He’d look for the ephemeral instances of secrecy where she became her best self…. She’d shy away from a brawl. She’d stare at the Jukebox menus for what seemed like an eternity, just to play a single song that reminded her of home. She’d mutter a prayer, she’d substitute curse words for childish knock-offs that robbed her impassioned statement of its severity. She’d wrangle her hair from the wild of a long night and toss it tenderly over her shoulders.

Life was loud for them. Kate seemed to prefer it; it kept her from thinking. Seth was used to it. His conditioning allowed him to reflect on his companion while remaining the dedicated watchdog. He thought a lot on the nightly finale. It was innocent in nature but left Seth conflicted no less.

When the talking stopped and amusement had ended, Seth found himself watching the day’s credits roll until it was jus he and Kate alone in a darkened room. It was here where he felt his most exposed and defenseless. If it had not been for the veil of night, he could not brave the closeness of sharing a bed with such a complex creature. It was without agenda or perversion. His intentions were as pure as she was herself. Plagued by the awareness of the ways of the world, Seth knew his limits as a man were tested nightly. Specifically, in the gentle moment before they retired to sleep and Kate released a grateful exhale upon feeling Seth settle beside her in bed.

Seth knew he was the only man she spent any real time with. Her great reluctance to bond with anyone but him warmed his heart. She had all the freedom in the world; still all she wanted was to share her days in a dive-bar’s corner booth and her nights lying beside him. There was a captivation which grew steadily. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, he knew that much. There was just no overlooking her reserve for their lives together and watching her play too hard in the world only to casually crawl into bed with him, an adult man with needs and urges, made their lifestyle harder and harder to rectify with himself.

Kate needed protecting from herself, as much as the threat a hot-blooded, silver-tongued outlaw poses beside her in bed. Kate’s desperation to purge her pain had her spiraling to close to the places one does not come back from. Seth feared trespassing against her above all things. He cherished their closeness so greatly that the only way to preserve it was to enforce the very boundaries he helped her shed. But God forbid, he thought, that she ever need protecting from him.

And thus, Penance was born. The massacre that left the duo wanting to feel anything but how they did. It was playful and fun with penalties stacked against each confessor to be paid off throughout the game at the hand of the “Priest.” In theory, the role of the Priest would rotate between players but simply alternated between Kate and Seth as there were only ever two players. It was a teaching device that allowed reckless behavior in a controlled environment. It incorporated the mischievous playfulness Seth possessed and the need for moral balance that Kate craved. Naturally, Penance stayed true to its origin and remained a drinking game. A common ground for both Seth and Kate.

Every new day was a coin toss of who would face greater ruin. Seth had the tolerance of an entire lifetime’s letdowns to lessen the blow. Kate was a fresh idealist who’d only ever known life to be gracious and fair. Penance allowed them to explore their self-abasing tendencies and share laughs while they were at it.

The concept was simple: the Confessor confesses one secret and depending on the magnitude or content of said secret, the Priest will then furnish the guilty with a “penance.” Often this was a dare, stunt, challenge or act designed to humiliate the other. It was cathartic and lighthearted for a spell, but as Seth had predicted it was not going to be all sunshine and roses forever.

It is easy to see how Penance could win over the broken psyches of the guilt-riddled survivors. Named for the consequences players acquired with turn, the pastime was more of a punishment than a game. Whatever noble intentions designed to develop discipline and boundaries had been violated and trespassed against more times than not. Seth paved the way with his sadistic appetites, enforcing severe penalties that were often painful or degrading. Kate’s refusal to play the game in the past was final. But Kate had reactivated the blood sport by uttering the traditional words which open any confessional session: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Song List~  
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth
> 
> I know, I know. Been a while. Finally back on track. Doing my best here. Don't mind the typos, there are a few but I wanted to spit this out sooner rather than later because you guys have waited for so long AND I'VE HOGGED ALL THE GOOD PARTS UNTIL I HAVE STABLE ACCESS HAHA..
> 
> As you can see, we've got something scary coming up in chapter 14. Mostly done but needs a loving touch.
> 
> Be good, you rascals.


	14. Scouts Honor

_“Look at the world around you.”_ Guttural and detached, Seth’s voice held no context. _“It’s coming apart.”_ Kate didn’t need context anymore. Whatever he was muttering resonated on its own. Kate had been bested by Seth and his vague sentiments could only ensnare her further. They were all that remained authentic in the whole of her world. She had become the pitiful mutant in her own life’s story. Compared to the virtuous youth who thrived back in Bethel, she was a monstrosity. Seth safeguarded her pulse for his amusement. After all, there’s no glamor in being a lone survivor and Kate had been preserved exclusively to compliment Seth’s crisis. He could not combat the fear of living alone let alone the nightmare of living at all. His passions rivaled Kate’s in a greedy bid to be crowned “Least Worthy Survivor.” There was no blessing in their fates anymore. Seth’s ego pondered the value of life if there’s no one else to spend theirs watching it. Kate’s loneliness left her fraught with an indifference to rambling on.

At the dawn of their new dawn, Kate had been Seth’s plunge of morphine on the eve of addiction and he was the fevered bliss of hypothermia Kate couldn’t register as lethal. They were the battle-forged, double-act with everything to lose. No one had the freedom they did. And that was their sweet spot. The great escape from the darkness. That was their truth; no matter how hard they ran from it. They were exhausted blood-rushed fugitives shackled together, only ever able to run in matrimony. Before long, Kate had forgotten she’d been the victim and Seth the reason for her torment. It was easy to do when things were peachy and Seth was charming. He made her need him and milked it for all its worth.

There’s a difference between the things one does to survive and the things done to feel alive. Seth was not blind to the concept, he merely lost interest in toeing the line. Onward, the duo burned through necessity and right into blatant moral decay.

Kate knew she had faltered. She’d compromised herself willingly. She’d sinned easily and made a good thief. It was a tasty substitute for prayers she knew would go unanswered. Kate adapted in turn. She loved being a vision in a nightclub. She languished in the successes of her grifts, in tempting men, and flattering women. Uninhibited madness sparked the embrace of her lusts and a life undedicated to the hazard of experiences.

Seth was Godlike with a background approach to her will. He was the father of her curiosities. He taught Kate everything no one should ever know and before long she was fluent in _outlaw_. Seth catered to her appetites. He admired her decadence. He was indulgent and silver-tongued, and Kate was a flawless trophy. Seth’s influence delivered a protégé to define himself by.

They had built their life together with stolen tools and pipedreams. She decorated the interior while he fortified the exterior. The room for debate was occupied by their demons forever scratching at the walls and playing the blame game. There was never any question as to what went wrong. It was obvious that _everything_ was problematic. Kate having built her own prison, to following the instructions of her warden; Kate had earned her cage.   

* * *

The drugs forced Kate’s mind into all the dark places too severe to escape. She thought of her father, her mother and Scott but found any comfort recalled was quickly sullied by the actuality of their fates. She felt deserving of the persecution and detested her history with Seth, moreover, the level at which she cherished them and his illusions of decency she fell prey to. Her family would be ashamed to see her in such a state. There was a dread of exposure. Shame. Humiliation. She dug deeper into her pain, placing her thoughts of Kyle on the forefront of her tired mind. Their last encounter was not even theirs but a perversion of the tenderness they knew. The pattern of inauthentic manipulations turned her stomach into tremors of anxiety.

Kate had shared her last consenting act with her jailer’s own brother. It was a desperate and determined act when she had not yet been made privy to the appetites of men. In its place was the inaction of men decreed by God and birth to protect her tribe. Shame. Anger. Resentment.

Kate cross-examined her life with Seth, and all she had learned since that moment at the Titty Twister. She would have done anything to rectify the danger and she hated herself for not being more forward in bargaining for their freedom. What more could she have expected from herself though? Kate was her father’s daughter though. Once anyway.

The more she thought on the past, the more disgrace heaved in her chest. Not for her own methods of clout, novice as they were, but rather the lack of authority her father possessed at the end. He had been the Shepherd, ever-watchful of his flock; and though he was not a man of boldness, neither was he a man of cowardice and that should have merited something more. Even Scott was helpless. He was petulant and reckless; inevitably rendered ineffective by his own insecurities. Kate envied his fire and willingness to fight. He was a storm, unpredictable and drastic. His temper had him pegged as a liability to Seth, and the only sway he had with Richie was that of homicidal intent. On the other hand, Kate’s sway with Richie was effortlessly acquired.

Kate was brave and insecure: a true Fuller. Looks alone were enough to draw wolves near but the fervency of her withstanding youthfulness made for an intoxicating potion. Fixated on her lingering innocence, those of a predatory nature did little to prevent her from weaponizing her appeal. This included, if not exclusively pertained to, Richie.

Richie in the red-room, adorned with the nakedness of another woman. Kate’s mind’s eye was beyond controlling, fixing itself to the memory. Richie’s posture was stiff. His shoulders were labored with uneasiness and the dancer’s painted nails gripping into the fabric of his tailored suit. Richie slid his large hands up the sides of his entertainer, her rhythmic hips quickening in his lap. A flush of red rose from up his neck and across his face, dramatizing his admiral blues behind his trademark specks. Richie appeared pleased with the aesthetic, tightening his long fingers up her toned body. A trail of blood from his bullet-laced hand painted up her ribcage in an absentminded break from reality.

Kate watched Richie from the doorway. The sight was not meant for her but his behavior was not as she’d expected to see. His trance was erotic and he appeared peaceful, and masculine. His eyes glazed to a thousand-yard stare, he looked so human to her. Like the odd stud he’d pretended to be at the pool. There was no room for his troubled mind in the thrill of the present, Kate realized. Richie wasn’t designed for the seedy superficiality of a stranger’s hips coaxing him to release. He wasn’t meant to be around people at all.

The woman enticed him back from his introversion with a whispered suggestion that Kate could tell he had taken too literally. Her beauty disinterested him then. Richie blinked the lines of tunnel vision from his scope and dropped his heavy hands from his bloody masterpiece. He looked at his wounded palm, _“Get out.”_ The dancer snickered and pulled herself from his space. She brushed past Kate, who blushed at her bare body. It wasn’t a thrill that could hold Richie’s attention. Certainly not with an audience. But Kate had never seen such physicality before.

 _“They prefer to gyrate in private.”_ Richie’s tone was cool and nonchalant, deeper than Seth’s but somehow more serene. _“What do you want, Kate?”_

The conversation was short-lived, accumulating to a violation of boundaries but before she was overcome with fear and embarrassment, she found herself grateful for the dancer and having been able to witness her magic. Momentarily, at least, she had stripped him of his guards and neutralized his psychosis enough to service the baser impulses of the flesh. He was only man, after all. His quirks and severities were intimidating and enigmatic. The lap dance was foreplay she wouldn’t have known how to navigate. It eased his inner conflicts to bed, rendering his carnal pursuits dominant.

Kate felt so small beside him. Or perhaps, he felt extraordinarily large. The attraction to Richie was immediate and withstanding. Looking back, leveled to honesty by the drugs, Kate wondered how selfless her intentions had been. Maybe he was a test; an obstacle to overcome. Feeling her own sensuality challenged by the topless bodies swaying, it would be natural to attempt an alignment of oneself with the strongest of the pack. Richie had no intention of hurting her, she believed that much; and she wanted to survive. If there had ever been a better target to practice her charms on, she was sure Richie had probably murdered them already.

The breaking of their second kiss proved more informative than she’d needed. The young outlaw was a veracious jolt of consequence. Dangerously responsive, his body declared the hunger of men to be savage and penetrating. The dormancy of her mature awareness was abruptly awakened and she’d wondered how long she’d been alone with him.

 _“Preacher’s daughter strikes again.”_ Seth’s taunting voice echoed in her memory. She was petrified at the time, for more reasons than not, but the newfound empowerment altered her entirely. What a child she had been with Kyle. She had been reckless and perverse, titillating Richie’s reckless perversions. He was dangerous and she was compromising. Had it not been interrupted by Seth, Richie could have turned on her, as he had so many before her.

At his core, Richie was a beastly man with sinister proclivities. He was ravenous and impulse driven. He was a sadistic sexual-deviant. She had been a witness to his body’s response, advocating he ravish her in that back, red-room. The episode of stolen closeness could have gone horrifically vile. Had it not been for Seth.

There was a flash of understanding that silenced Kate’s guilt and fondness for that improper moment. Informed interest flooded her naïve sensibilities. She smiled through swollen lips still slicked with blood Seth had drawn. There was a bigger picture at hand, however. Kate could still taste it on her abused lips.

They had tasted the kiss of a man more dangerous than Seth. She had seen his face burn red-hot with anticipation, while his body grew shamelessly tense and unconcealed from her touch. Seth had Franensteined the last moments he had with his brother to his code. It had all been so innocent, but Seth didn’t know that. Seth only knew he felt closer to Richie when he was Richie. Lucky for Kate, she had sway with him.

* * *

Seth stood rigidly over his pharmacy on the opposite side of the room. Kate could see him dissolving into peripheral static against the dated walls. Vintage tunes fell in a haze throughout the four walls. They were hauntingly cheerful, suiting only the demons Seth strived to appease. The lyrics bowed to Seth’s throaty discourse demanding control of the room. He smirked from a safe distance, watching Kate lay on the floor: lost in the high he gifted. _“Where did you go?”_ He queried with no sincere interest in a response. Kate remained still in her thoughts and the hope she found in a dirty memory of his brother.

Seth was motivated by a hatred he couldn’t place or understand but knew revolved around the ruination of something opposite to himself. He was ashamed of the words he brought into the world. They disqualified greater opportunities and he had played his hand too early. In the process, exposing his devious kinks. His desires were embarrassments reshaped into threats, and designed to tear apart the object of his black-heart’s affection; not to mention, the one person who likely could never understand the darkness he’d become in tandem with her light. Kate tore his soul apart. She was virtually incorruptible by his standards; and her soul was spoken for and untouchable. But her body wasn’t.

It was not yet too late to release her from his makeshift chamber of horrors. Of course, Seth’s ego had all but cleaned up the mess he imagined brutalizing her into. He couldn’t help but go back and forth, weighing the pros and cons, only to remind himself it didn’t matter what happened next. There was no rectifying the situation. He snorted a line of cocaine off the low standing table at the foot of the bed. _He could let her go now; he hadn’t done the Big Bad._ No, he’d come too far with his bravado and boasting to back out. He needed a plan. He knew Kate stood a better chance surviving Telemundo’s super-secret Nosferatu fan club than she did sharing a bed with him for one more night. The elements would be a longer, more painful death but at least it wouldn’t be at the hands of some asshole: human or other.

If it came down to it, Seth decided he would chase down the orange horizon, where the scorching brightness of the sun cleverly concealed a domineering canyon wall from the untrained eye. It stretched for miles in opposite directions, harmonized with an emerald brook that ran a 50/50 chance of being dried up. If it wasn’t though, and if Kate knew to follow the water downstream, she’d be guided the distance to a communal water source that a small village still thriving without the modern luxuries of electricity or indoor plumbing resided. If Kate managed to make it there alive and the villagers weren’t vampires or murderous in any regard, and the water wasn’t dried up and the wild wasn’t hungry, and Seth hadn’t gone back to finish her off; then he felt Kate’s chances of survival were fairly decent. He didn’t know what to do with her otherwise. No matter what happened, the damage was done. Seth knew he was overthinking. His heart was beating a-million-miles-a-minute. His nose was becoming clogged with white residue. He knew he was stalling. It was uncharacteristic of him. Rather, it was uncharacteristic of who he used to be.

Seth didn’t know himself anymore and he didn’t want to. He had always been different than his brother. As his only frame of reference, he had found comfort in the differences between them. It helped build his identity and gave him a second perspective without ego or deception. Richie had no ego. He was pure, unadulterated evil. He was so evil he didn’t know it. Richie was like a child halted in the heartless stage of never having known loss and only ever love that was unconditional and therefore, never prompted to reciprocate. Sure, there was a semblance of love for Seth and a particular affection for Kate, but he was incapable of much more than mimicking what that looked like.

Richie was always _off_ but it worked for him and served his purposes. He wasn’t one to stress boundaries of thought or frustration because he didn’t have to overthink anything at all. He had a panoramic view of any given situation. Sometimes he approached them appropriately. Mostly he was looking at a dozen other panoramic timelines of the same situation, mapped out across his giant brain, and being weeded out based on preferred proximity to his favorite taco stand.

Seth was less concerned with the little things. The big picture was less about idealized idiosyncrasies and more about where to point the gun to get the bag. His fuse was longer, he was more socially competent and the ends always had to justify the means. Unlike Richie, who grifted through life like a man with an inside joke with himself. He was petty and scary, and his dry, stoicism left much to be desired. It was a stark difference to Seth’s enthusiastic, fast-talking threats riddled with obscure, cult references and topped off with a pet name or broken nose. Seth had a code which upheld professionalism and efficiency. Richie was an abstract riddle with ever changing answers but increasingly brutal consequences.

The Geckos spent most of their lives as people only a brother could love. Seth found himself compensating for the loss of Richie’s quirks by embodying them himself. The myth of having possessed superior mental health compared to his brother had been debunked entirely. The roots of his personality were so deeply tangled with that of his brother’s, he couldn’t tell where he began and Richie loitered.

Richie was an echo of the past. A snapshot that captured breath in cold air and presses the senses to retreat to a still-standing point in time. Seth knew there was no going back. It was his greatest hurt. He had to make sure Kate felt it too. He knew he couldn’t fill his brother’s shoes, as Richie couldn’t fill his. But for the time being, trying was all he could do. Trying to persevere and trying to know which half of him was excited to play with Kate, and which were ashamed.

Seth looked at the girl on the floor: beaten, bleeding and helpless. She had no right to make him feel ill-at-ease. He knew women and how to establish roles befitting of their sex. He could break her and if he couldn’t, he could dispose of her. Then again, she was something of a neat souvenir from a trip that otherwise sucked.

A very particular breed, the Gecko’s were. Few could map them but none could tame them. She was swiftly taken by a wash of electric fervency, fostering the truth of her own untamed wiles. Kate knew the Gecko’s. She had that much going for her and at the moment, that was a-helluva-lot.

Seth had gone to great lengths to reclaim his perceived value as a threat. It was part of his identity as a man, and professional. Being the less monstrous of the brothers left him feeling emasculated, as the undead status meant he could never surpass him. Kate was connecting the dots with more intrinsic detail. Seth was a great pretender, but for too long he’d been tip-toeing them both closer to Hell in Richie’s shoes. His persona wavered to and fro, and Kate wondered how dedicated a performer he truly was. If Seth was going to act like Richie, she was going to treat him like Richie. If there was any chance of surviving Penance, it was concealed somewhere in the fractured psyche of Seth/Richie Gecko.

* * *

Seth thumbed open a prescription bottle and tipped it into his mouth. Crunching on opiates, he looked upon Kate. She spoke softly to herself, words he didn’t much care to decipher. He had other thoughts occupying his poisoned brain. _“It’s been too long, Katie-cakes.”_ Something about his tone was apologetic and brimming with genuine nostalgia.

Kate hadn’t forgotten about the earlier days of their small life together. She missed his boisterous laugh, she couldn’t remember what his eyes looked like when they were clear, she remembered the safe place they’d made for one another. Bidding farewell to the lie they built their world on was the most painful of all the losses. She’d even settle for the days when he merely regarded her as a seen-not-heard housekeeper. A part of her struggled not to bargain with the universe or God or herself, just to make the bathroom her hideout again.

Seth ruined everything. He made it dirty and turned it into property, like a true thief. If she got the chance again, she wondered if she would be able to gun him down with his own revolver like she toyed with before. She could, she thought.

She hoped she could.

Seth could still taste sweat and blood in the corner of his lips. The sharp, jarring kick of an intimate corruption made his mouth water. She was so frail and small under his control. The metallic tang, hypnotic in its attachment to Kate, mingled with his sweat and his body revved from the drugs and eagerness, or anger, or both. He wanted to bottle it like a potion and savor the surge no narcotic had ever supplied him with. The cocaine dripping down the back of his throat was bitter in its travels. His greed turned bitter too. He needed more from her.

* * *

 _“I took the initiative of phoning downstairs. Had us added to the “Do not disturb” list. Very exclusive.”  
“Wouldn’t want anyone interrupting Family Game Night.”_ Kate conceded dreamily.

 _“Wouldn’t want Family Game Night interrupting anyone else.”_ Seth’s eyes were mostly pupil. His skin was beaded with sweat. Something about his coloring made his silly inked flames look electric blue and reminded her of Richie’s eyes.

 _“I’d welcome a change of pace;”_ Seth grinned at her retort. His lips were red and full from collision. _“Change of clothes would be better.”_ She finished.

He looked supernatural.

_“My boxers are a great color on you.”_

_“I kinda doubt that.”_ Kate’s body ached less and less and it was harder for her to focus on the task at hand. She had to play her role if she was going to best the opposing thespian. It was her move. She needed to take the initiative but she wasn’t feeling bold or combative. All she knew was she didn’t want to hear Seth host the evening with a series of monologues that would only make sense if she were twenty years older and possessed the full encyclopedia of underground cult crazes specific to Seth and Richie’s adolescent development.

 _“What’s in your mouth?”_ Kate finally pried, shifting her body to a disinterested pose, and resting the crest of her arms in a lose fold over her eyes.

 _“Candy.”_ Seth was perplexed but charmed by the way she took to his remedies. The corner of his lips curved devilishly but in the same instance, his brows furrowed in disappointment.

“ _Mmm_ _…_ ” she purred, pulling one bare knee over the other. _“Is it sweet or sour?”_

Seth sauntered to the warm space on the carpet where her leg had been resting. He envied her composure, especially in such a state. He was drug addled and exhausted to lunacy, but even he knew he must have looked like shit. He saw it in Kate’s eyes which wrinkled slightly, pinching a wince to her face. It must have hurt to look at him for many reasons but it had been ages since he saw her look at him with idealistic captivation. He should have tried harder. He knew that much. She had a schoolgirl crush that came and went like the interest of young things. But he adored the mannerisms of her poised denial. Kate tilted her head with closed eyes, afraid she’d blush if their gazes held too long. She always did but he never teased her. It took all his restraint not to hold her face in his hands just to feel the warmth of her shy glow.

 _“Sweet.”_ Seth’s exhale trembled slightly. He felt his face redden as while his eyes glared at her exposed skin. She had been worked over, and badly. It didn’t matter so much to him that he did it but that he couldn’t control his body’s responses to the violence. He was sure he had de-aged fifteen years. Seth clung to the frustration of his lust. It fueled more sinister curiosities he had no intention of restraining permanently.

 _“Can I taste it?_ ” Kate’s request was humble and childlike, heightening Seth’s torment.

Kate was invincibility and hope, and he hated her for it. She moved her raised knee in rhythm over the other, back and forth. Seth felt torn by the anger of his own misbehaviors and Kate’s inability to protect herself. He had to destroy her because she could never be his, even if he forced it so. His breathing became rapid. His jaw clenched to hush the uneven breaths of excite. The unprotected teen had him so tightly wound, he had to fight to keep his composure. The room was too hot for him to feel so agitated. His every muscle flexing for control.

 _“Will you swallow it whole?”_ He rolled a pill bottle in hand, as if reluctant to share. _“Is that what makes it good?”_ The cap flung to the floor beside her before the inflection of her question landed.

 _“Let me show you.”_ Seth spoke coolly. He lorded over Kate and watched as she lifted her chin toward the sound of his voice and opened her mouth. She was as committed to surviving as Seth was to prolonging the visual. Seth slid two capsules onto her tongue. His thumb followed down her chin, as she closed her mouth to dry swallow the biggest risk of her life.

 _“Just like that.”_ Seth spoke under his breath, combatting every muscle in his body that twitched with carnal impulse. If he could remain in control of his body, he would be _given_ control hers.

The pounding in his chest hastened, riveting awareness down his legs. Heat shot up the back of his neck, and he gripped the ink of his neck’s tattoo with a large spread of fingers that desperately needed a hobby.

Seth could feel Richie’s eyes in his skull. Glaring at Kate, he traced the outlines of his handprints across her alabaster skin. His stomach tensed; sweat from his chest dripped down his abdomen, holding his blood-spattered button up in place against his tan body, rippled with the strength of a much better man. He wanted to blame Richie but didn’t want to credit him the conquest.

 _“Tell me what it feels like.”_ Kate spoke as if asking for a bedtime story but all he could imagine was her responsiveness to euphoria. He was no longer in control. He was dangerously close to tearing through her bliss and finding his own. He was better than that, he was skilled and experienced. Seth’s blood ran hot against his fleeting professionalism. It mirrored the oncoming satisfaction Kate was soon to enjoy. He needed a timeout.

 _“I can do that.”_ He couldn’t. _“Why don’t you soak your bones first? Plenty of better ways to be sore.”_

 _“I could drown.”_ Kate was listless but aware enough to know that stripping naked and immersing herself in a pool of water, eight feet from a sexual sadist trying to find his footing as his undead brother, was more than a little risky.

_“I’ll have to come in and save you.”_

_“Pretty big incentive not to drown.”_ She raised a limp wrist in his direction. He instinctively grabbed hold, gently pulling her to her feet.

 _“You have no idea.” Seth concurred. Kate's_  eyes struggled to stay open, she didn’t trust her legs and her knees were just as suspicious. Seth tucked her hair behind her ear. She couldn’t look at him, she was disgusted by his touch.

 _“No peaking.”  
“Perfect gentleman. Scouts honor.”_ He purred, dropping his hands down her sides, pausing for a fraction of a second on the band of her scrolled boxers. His adrenaline was raging, her skin was crawling. The slow, exaggerated stumbling to the bathroom was a walk of shame she knew could only get worse. He had her at a disadvantage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE REMAINS OF MY WORD DUMPS. Had to clear house. Not sorry. Need it for lata.  
> 15, 16, 17 all done and being beta'ed :D
> 
> Have fun with this hot swamp turd in the meantime. Be back with the others sofa king fast, pervs.
> 
> -Gent
> 
> ~Song List~  
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt


	15. Penance Evasion

Seth imagined himself a beacon of magnificent benevolence and respectability. He was nothing if not a dignified gentleman. Seth had allowed Kate to shower, nay, insisted she tend to her injuries before perpetuating the tyrannical, social marathon he’d bullied into being. Seth had been imposing his disease on Kate so long, he had forgotten he was not well. Instead, he wore the mark of gallant altruism proudly in his mind’s eye, as his own gaze was still affixed in a blank stare on the back of the bathroom door. 

There was little distinction between the wildly improbable and sufficiently credible anymore. Seth had grown overstimulated with his addiction’s infinite distractions. His eyes had barely finished escorting Kate out of the room before the pocketful-of-moments disbanded and dissipated across his fried brain. Little more than droplets on water splashing onto a firetop-skillet. His recollection of the exchange between Kate and himself was unreliable at best. He replayed his most recent string of words once more in his head before prematurely birthing a deformed pride for the “act of kindness” bestowed upon Kate.

Buoyant, peculiar-assuredness began pouring from his psyche. Seth’s air of being quickly distorted into a character of malformed identities. The misshapen personality sprung alive with preposterous fast and distinction. Seth imagined into existence, a man of endless remarkability, who commanded respect, and privilege, and admiration for his righteous composure. Described as an “inspiring, champion-gladiator and intellectual” by himself, he feigned humility for himself, in the audience watching himself. 

For a few ticks of the clock, Seth’s disruption had remained trapped in the confines of his poisoned thoughts. Baselessly declaring the validity of his decency to be both impressive, but accomplished. These bouts of introspective psychosis were less harmful than the split-physicality and possible embodiment of his brother’s consciousness. Even still, the fantasy of his good-natured alter ego was not only rare but short-lived. The ecstasy that flooded the senses during a break from reality, allowed Seth to momentarily forget he was a horrendous human being. Seth’s memory recall was remarkably flawed, rendering the elation of not even being himself, as delicious a temptation, as it was difficult and dramatic to recover from.

Seth treated these lapses in thought and control with further drug use. Forfeiting much of day’s truths to his ego and drug dependence. Recovery, improvement, resolve was a bare-bones concept, every facet of which was loosely understood and too easily fractured to merit resuscitation. In reality, Seth was little more than a horrifying cesspool of psychological and emotional traumas, disorders and disturbances. Whatever bit of him remained in advocacy of sobriety, was vividly self-aware, ashamed and consciously longing for a terminal stroke or damning overdose. 

Seth’s need to part from Kate came to light in his own scope. Devilishly far from self-sacrificing, at the very least, his intentions cleared up the matter of a raging hard-on he’d been brandishing for an undeterminable length of time. Seth was hardly an exhibitionist but with the lights upstairs blinking show-tunes in Morse code, he wasn’t able to process shame or alter his behaviors to remedy it. Even if he could, being the human embodiment of egocentricity, there’s cause to gamble he’d embrace a small audience to shower him in suggestive attention. 

After all, Seth’s cock was a prominent warning. It remained firm and unyielding, in a coup against the rest of him. The intimidation of his severe vanity garnered the hedonistic thrills exhilarating to Seth. It was a pleasurable ache that ignited a man’s visceral desires and propelled their very nature to bend in a rabid hunt for achievement.

In short, Seth was an unhinged maniac with a teenager’s libido and penchant for street drugs, jailbait and games.

***

The migration from the room’s filthy carpet to that safe place behind a closed bathroom door was the longest, most arduous journey Kate had ever been prompted to make. She made it to the sanctuary in a shivering display of who she remembered being. Slamming the door just in time to hear Seth snicker in questionable agreement with himself. As if she'd ingested arsenic, Kate stuck as many fingers as she could fit down her throat until some semblance of Seth's pharmaceuticals had been rejected. The up-chuck was more promising than she’d have wagered, but that didn’t lessen the disorientation she was left to combat on an empty stomach and with no experience. 

Baffled by her own history of idolizing the mad man beyond the door, Kate was as invested in surviving as she was in destroying the evidence of his existence. Rarely did she play a pawn to her own ego but matters of moral decay paled in comparison to her survival. In the crosshairs of a Gecko, Kate knew it was vanquish or be vanquished. 

The one-on-one humiliations was tolerable once. It was tolerable when Seth was coping and Kate was indebted. It was manageable when she looked at Seth through hormone-tinted glasses and somehow the destroyer of her life was acquitted of all crimes against her soul. The yelling, the shoving, the threatening and berating, it was all manageable. It was the language they knew. Once she learned how to speak Gecko, however, somehow the ability to understand anything else was lost to her. If it hadn’t been cut, shot or schemed by one of the dark brothers, it was as unsophisticated and useless as finger-painting.

Kate was no saint but she knew she was no Gecko either. She was a fighter. She was an idealist. She was as committed to surviving as she was to thriving. Her values had strengthened with every threat against her life. Her resolve was indestructible. Every assault on her quality of life only fortified her reverence for the prosperity promised to her, by higher powers than any man could reach. 

Still stabilizing from her own addictions, Kate tallied the damages. Hooked on a romanticized past, the comfort of familiarity and nostalgic longing for all she had taken for granted, Kate had charge of herself and herself alone. There was no next of kin, there was no property, no savings, no home, no-nothing. Where there was nothing to own, so was there no debt. She was beholden to no one. She owed no one her life, her body, her thoughts, or her time. Kate was, in the purest form, “a woman unto herself,” and the literal definition of a virgin. 

Peering into her bleeding, rainbow-bruised reflection, Kate knew she would heal in time. There would be scars. Some on the surface, and others running deeper than most veins. Kate still wore Seth’s clothes. The image made her fidgety and anxious. She was uncomfortable in that second skin. The fabric said she belonged, that she was not alone and that she was shielded from the advances of greed hands and eyes. Kate needed to be somebody’s once. ‘Not like this,’ she thought. The fabric stuck to her torso with dried blood. Her face a canvass for abuse. The splash of crimson from her nose. The blue, bulbous lip made swollen by a maniac’s backhanded-knuckles. A deep slit on the outside of her left eyebrow that would need suturing. Purple, green, pink, russet swells of pain beneath the alabaster surface. Bruises in full bloom, spreading splotchy humiliation across Kate’s beautiful-everything. It was clear then, what should have been clear all along. Blood was a small price to pay for living. A price Kate had paid in a hand over fist pace that should have bequeathed her immortality. She’d settle for the night, though… survival was a work in progress. 

***

Seth breathed heavy on the bathroom door. Kate stripped the abomination of an outfit she had on and kicked the garments in a heap under the sink. Seth dragged his fingertips down the wooden frame with unsettling pressure. Kate inched her ear to the door, her palms hovering over the barrier's peeling aqua paint. Seth pressed his chin into the rusted hinge-plates, raking his sharp jaw back and forth. Kate's slender fingers ran over the latch of the cheap lock skeptically. Seth swayed in rhythm with INXS, falling into a trancelike state behind the door. Kate pulled soapy water from her hair, yet the hauntingly relevant "Never Tear Us Apart" played like a siren. Seth hummed a throaty lullaby through the cracks where the steam escaped. Kate spun in terror half-expecting to see Seth behind the curtain. Seth was nowhere in sight but could be heard on the other side of the door, battling Neil Diamond for Kate’s uneasy attention. Kate’s sudden panic left her shaking, and nauseous in the fog. Seth made conversation with himself, twirling Gecko-famous mantras into a raspy, melodic dirge. Kate gently scrubbed the dried blood from her body, watching in spiral pink down the drain. Seth all but licked the condensation from the walls and lingered in arousal mere inches from the nude, wet object of his obsession. Kate’s water ran clear of suds and blood, and shortly after, out of hot water and excuses to stay in the bathroom. Seth had proven difficult to drown out against the shower’s echoing downpour. Kate stepped out of the shower, a hitched breath stifling her air supply. Seth’s presence hung on the inside of the bathroom by a wire hanger on the doorknob. Seth’s dreadful intents were loud and suffocating; made worse still by his crippling fear of silence. Kate patted herself dry with a stale towel, eyeing the garment on the hanger. Seth exhausting the shared space with song, after song of plugged suggestion. Kate searched for the soiled clothes she wore before showering, but they were gone. Seth rapped lightly on the sweaty door with wild fingers dancing out of step. Kate pulled the garment on over hear wet head and wriggled her thighs into a pair of panties she hadn’t seen in a long time. Seth cued the voiceless “Sleep Walk” by: Santo & Johnny Farina for Kate’s emergence from the bathroom. Kate stepped through a billowing cloud of steam and into the strummed enchantment of a tropical, utopian daydream the song seemed to inspire. Seth had pulled himself back to a relative normalcy Kate hadn’t seen in months. Kate stood self-conscious and vulnerable in a flowy, sundress with sheer overlay that fell just above the knee. Seth’s collective cool was holed off in the corner by the stereo where his serene coolness was on display; due, in large part, to the way he made cigarettes look sexy and powerful, like they used to. Kate decided she’d been manipulated enough for one lifetime, she wasn’t going to let Seth get smoking past her too.

***

Kate was a vision, even marred by the violence of Seth’s insanity. Once the dry blood had been scrapped off and the swelling in her face lessened, her natural beauty knew no other way than to shine through the pain. Seth had lessened the intensity and frequency of his explosive behaviors, in the past. Fighting against his baser impulses to pounce and ravage, Seth composed himself without provocation; however, Kate had materialized from a wall of clouds across the length of the room. Her legs still damp from palls of billowing steam caught in the sticky, clean air of her shower. Her shoulder blades glistened, her collarbones gleamed. Seth couldn’t distinguish between Kate’s natural sheen, water, steam, or sweat. All he knew was she was lustrous, moisturized, clean personification of purity, innocence and incorruptibility. 

Kate was a vision. He could never truly compete. He didn’t deserve to know her let alone paint her skin with agonizing shades of abuse, humiliation, degradation, misuse and battery. He made her bleed; not in the proper way such a thing could happen between a guy and a gal. Seth knew better than all he’d done. Like the vermin running mangy and diseased through the Mexican cities, Seth darted to the dark corner of the room where his arousal was more easily tamed and concealed; and where his eyes could not be read for intents.

Seth was entirely dependent on whatever supply of self-discipline he had left. There wasn’t much left anymore. He knew as much. His quality of life was rapidly deteriorating. Seth needed Kate like an elixir. He was parasitic in theory, but if keeping her alive suited them better than the contrary, who could complain? Of course he wanted her for himself. He was not a creative man and had little inspiration outside the bedroom, regarding pretty, young things. Then again, where else did he really need to shine? Ideally, he’d get his hyper-sexuality under control before it became another display of aggression against Kate. He wasn’t aiming for perfection; just improvement.

“She sure can make an entrance though, can’t she?” Seth smirked in conversation with himself. He pulled a long drag from his cigarette before dapping the embers onto the carpet.  
“So much for Scout’s Honor.” Kate shook her wet hair out from a clip, letting it fall in loose tendrils on her bare shoulders.  
“Trust me, when I act out of accordance with the Boy Scouts of America’s conduct policy, you’ll know it.  
“Is that Davy Jones?” Kate prompted. Seth grimaced an affirmative response coupled with a curious nod; somewhat surprised, somewhat embarrassed for being caught Jonesin’. He quickly cleared his throat and lowered the volume.  
“Ready to square yourself with the Almighty?” Seth clapped his hands together before taking two large strides to a short coffee table and pulling it to the foot of the bed, positioning his chair in an adjacent position.  
“Floor’s fine.”  
“Suit yourself.”  
“You know you’re not actually ordained and therefore cannot actually grant clemency, right?”  
“Who needs the operator, when ya’ got the real deal right here?” Seth was blasphemous and charming. Still, he caused one to wonder whether or not he believed his own script, or just wrote it.

***

Seth’s demeanor had changed drastically since Kate’s brief bathroom reprieve. He was spry and easy going. She wondered who she had the pleasure of speaking with now. Was it Seth, Richie, or one of his 12,000 hyperactive personas? Seth appeared as if he’d gotten sleep, an impossibility even by modern medical miracles. With all the coke, uppers and naughty cocktails in his system, Kate estimated Seth would tucker himself out sometime around her 30th birthday. Even still, Seth was alert in a manner not terrifying to others. He was composed and still; he no longer looked rabid or possessed. Though still interested in playing Penance, Kate decided to ere on the side of caution, and carry on as if the evening’s activities were still set in stone. Kate wondered if Seth was perhaps merely acting less intoxicated and saner than he actually was. A difficult feat to accomplish so seamlessly, but something not too different than what she was doing herself. If she no longer had the upper hand, she wanted to make sure she didn’t play hers too soon. The fact was, as much as she hated it: Seth was a professional bullshitter, and thusly, a human lie detector. The only thing worse than actually being as wrecked as Seth wanted, was being caught for faking it.

***

“Been a long time.” Kate exhaled listlessly.  
“Too long?” Seth tucked an unlit cigarette behind his ear. Kate paused, choosing her answers carefully.  
“Maybe.” Seth twitched his head slightly in her direction.  
“Is that so?” Seth posed. “You sittin’ pretty on a mountain of secrets?”  
“Only mostly.” Kate was sure to fatten her obliviousness to awkward pauses. Seth purred in acknowledgement, watching her carefully through furrowed brows. “How you feeling, Bambi?” Seth leaned forward and filled two shot glasses with something undoubtedly strong and good on grease stains.  
“Fine, thank you so much!” Kate was admittedly pretty buzzed, but heavy with awareness, she lit up an endearing, wide smile that caught Seth off guard. It was about ten pearly whites too smiley for their current setup.  
“You’re welcome. You let me know if you want anything, okay?” Seth spoke softly.  
“Wow, thanks; okay, I will. Thanks, Seth.”  
“You’re welcome.”  
“What’s that short for?” Another pause Kate was ready to pretend didn’t exist. As a matter of fact, playing ‘Babe-in-the-Wood’ may just help keep foes friendly for a while. At least long enough to unravel a bit. Kate was relying on Seth’s self-destructive behavior to come to her aid.  
“What’s what short for?”  
“Seth.” Kate’s dilated eyes widened to cartoonish, black spheres that were as adorable as they were petrifying.  
“Yes?”  
“What’s it mean then?”  
“You’re not making any sense, Kiddo.”  
“Seth!”  
“You didn’t take any mystery pills from the floor, did you?” Seth seemed mildly concerned but more annoyed, as if left out of an inside joke he helped write.  
“Gross, no, did you? What kind? Sweet or sour?” Kate was annoyed with herself. She wasn’t playing dumb, she was simply playing. She had a vague lead with whatever was coursing through her veins, but that likely wouldn’t be enough to build that distinct, credible look of being blitzed or zooted, or stoned or plastered, or whatever they called the state of mind she needed to be in to safely navigate a murderous, violating outlaw.  
“Drug responsibly, Darlin’.”  
“Sethary.”Kate stated plainly, as if waiting for his ears to perk up in attendance.  
“Celary?”Seth wasn’t following Kate’s “journey” but he was happy to play the spectator.  
“Sethica. Sethel. Sethua.” Seth’s eyes opened wider. Confused but impressed.  
“I see what’s happening here.”  
“Sethtopher.” Kate went on.  
“You’re overthinking it.”  
“Seth row. Seth lab. Sethnic cleansing.”  
“Off the beaten path.”  
“Sethical dilemma.”  
“There’s just no end in sight.”  
“Sethro Tull.”  
“This is eternity.”  
“Sethernet.”  
“Slow down, Hotshot. You’ll blow a fuse. Honor roll?” Seth interjected quickly.  
“Drop-out.”  
“Two of a kind.” Seth raised a shot glass to Kate’s line of sight.  
“Rule breaker, breaking rules—tisk, tisk, tisk.” Kate quickly pumped the breaks on the game, resting her open palm on both shot classes and guiding them back to the table.  
“Can’t get nothin’ past you, Slick. Ten Commandments when you’re ready.” Seth graciously stood corrected by Kate. 

The Ten Commandments made up the rules of Penance, with a maximum number of ten rules per evening’s game. They could not be changed between rounds, they could not be substituted, and they could not be broken or bypassed. They were put in place after a cyclone of ever-changing personal preferences began dictating the game, making it more and more difficult to uphold fair play. They settled on just ten rules, mainly because if that was all the All Father could think of, then who were they to upstage the Big Guy?

Typically, the rules remained the same. Small tweaks were made here and there, usually due to environment or if playing in “Stealth Mode” where even surrounded by a group of people at a social event, Seth and Kate would continue the flow of their game throughout the gathering. Often this resulted in Revenge Penance and their antics would become more and more public, and disruptive. Rules set in place to protect a particular player, for instance With a game that has a 3 shot minimum to play, Kate once had to alter the rules to ensure she would not be penalized for refusing to drink additional shots or drinks, either as a penalty or Penance, when she was on antibiotics for Strep throat. In order to keep the twisted pastime civil, stating the rules clearly and hashing out any details beforehand, generally rendered a better experience. 

“Ladies first.” Seth encouraged.  
“Wait your turn, hussy!” Kate combatted, swatting at Seth for silence. “Number one: All Players must consume the designated starter drink, and or shot, prior to the commencement of Round #1 to maintain eligibility of participation.” Kate was breathless.

“Beautiful. Number two: Players must officially begin each confession session with the super-serious, seriously significant, and significantly sacred solicitation for salvation: ‘Bless me, Father; for I have sinned.’”

“A masterpiece. Number three: No narcs allowed. Only those responsible for a confession can profess their culpability. If a priest exposes a Confession, either before it is made or after the game has concluded, they will be excommunicated. If they are not banned by jilted parties, they will still face discharge from the “Clergy.” Once discharged, a Player no longer has the authority to hold Confession or give Penance. If a fellow Confessor exposes another’s confession, even in side-conversation, before or after the game, whatever, the tattletale faces Crucifixion. Crucifixion is summed up in three parts: the father (one shot of hard liquor), the son (a full beer) and the holy ghost (a bong rip.) The bong rip has to be inhaled first and cannot be exhaled until after both beer and shot have been consumed. Additionally, if betrayed by your social circle and your deepest-darkest-dirties are aired, you are exempt from any Penance for the next three rounds.”  
“And?”  
“Oh! And conspiracy to evade Penance shall result in all of your confessions, secrets, confidential information, everything you never wanted anyone to know, being opened like a can of whoop-ass on your ego. Also you have to do a shot for everyone forced to endure the secondhand embarrassment.”

“Well done, Number four: Penance Haggling is FORBIDDEN. Once given your penance, take it like the guilty guppy you are and show us your follow-through. Haggling comes with a penalty of one shot per offense.”

“The Booze Rules. Number five: Three shots must be consumed by at least one player before the start of Round #2. This is why the Starter Shot is thing. They count toward whichever unlucky ham gets targeted for alcohol poisoning.”

“Sickening, milady. Number six: Players are not allowed to touch one another for the first three Rounds.”  
“Keep it in check, Seth.”  
“Three? We agreed on three?”  
“There’s a blood oath hanging next to an autographed picture of Salma Hayek in a bar in TJ.”  
“Which bar?”  
“The nudie one.”  
“No contact. Three rounds. It is law.” Seth nodded his head begrudgingly.

“Number seven: Penance must be dispensed and fulfilled (collectively) before the start of the next round can commence.” 

Kate drummed her hands on the messy table next to her, “The Great and Powerful Rule Number Eight!”  
“Number eight: No murdering allowed.” Seth sunk back in his chair, somewhat soured by the rule.  
“Eight! Eight! Eight! Eight! Eight! Eight! Eight! Eight!”  
“Frankly, I’m concerned with how long this has remained a relevant Rule.”  
“We should be dead so many times by now.” Kate laughed her stomach sore and eyes teary.  
“Not all heroes wear capes.” Seth concurred with the cool tilt of his head and the click of his tongue, before rubbing his gums with more white powder.

“Number nine: No quitters.” Kate added.  
“Number ten: No liars.” Seth furthered.  
“And remember kids” Kate’s voice was grim and leading. Seth took the reins.  
“God is watching.” With a suggestive wink just for Kate, Seth nailed his line as usual.  
“Act accordingly.” They spoke in unison before clinking their shot glasses together and downing the Starter.

“Ready when you are, Dollface.” Seth cooed, resting his chin on his hands pressed together in mock-reverence. It was now a battle of wits and balls. Kate had the wit, Seth had the balls. But figuring you can only lose one of those things, Kate’s excitement rose from her stomach to a euphoric bravado in her shoulders. Kate was up for the challenge.

Father Seth Gecko, however, was a beacon of magnificent benevolence and respectability… Could his confessor say the same?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: 16 & 17 will be released shortly, I split apart another to make them longer. Primarily just smut though. 15 is a dialogue dump so the others will make sense. Pretty excited the direction I decided to go with. Hoping you all despite me for it. Sloppy kisses, all. 
> 
> ***
> 
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt  
> "Never Tear Us Apart" by: INXS  
> "Love Me the Way I Love You" by: Jerry Vale  
> "Sweet Caroline" by: Neil Diamond  
> "Sleep Walk" by: Santo & Johnny Farina  
> "Girl" by: Davy Jones  
> "America the Beautiful" by: Ray Charles  
> "She's Not There" by: Carlos Santana


	16. Round One

Round One began with the required opening. Kate uttered the words tenderly, half in reverence to the act, half in fear of the curse she knew she was unleashing. She watched Seth shift in anticipation. Jet black hair, tan skin slick with sweat partially covered in a disheveled outfit that seemed unsure as to what it was dressing for. Seth was barely recognizable anymore. Dilated pupils eclipsed the red of his eyes, blood-caked under his nose and around his gnawed lips. Kate knew he was too far gone to save. Not that she would. Not that she would, even if she could. Her soul was clear in a foggy mind: ‘Go to Hell, Seth Gecko.’

Smirking with bitterness, she thought back on her story. She thought back on all that had happened, all that had been lost and what was left to be at stake. She twirled her hair to distract from the pain in her chest. The tightening that made it hard to breathe unless she consented to cry. It wasn’t the sadness, it wasn’t the anger or loss, hell it wasn’t even the drugs. It was the truth. Seth had never been her friend or ally. All he’d had was a little girl’s hope that something could come from the loss of everything.

“Even though I detest you now—” Kate swallowed her pride whole. “I used to not… so much.” Nothing meant anything, and she realized now, it never had. “You were okay. Not as great as whatever you just gave me, but not the worst.” She shrugged and fell back on her palms, sliding both ankles from under the bloom of her dress and locking them absentmindedly. Seth narrowed his eyes at the teen.  
“Two shots for the sweet talkin’ little lady.” He winked finally. Unable to digest her confession.

Seth remained in at pensive standstill. The confession was charming and defiant with its vehement rejection. He filled Kate’s shot glass. She threw it down her throat, requesting a refill with a heavy slam of her empty glass. Seth obliged, watching as Kate downed the second shot just as quickly as the first. She shook her head and hands when she was finished, sticking her tongue out in a disgusted smile. Her eyes were watering. Seth waited for her to gag. Kate clapped her hands in declaration: “Woo! Your go.”

Seth altered his opening from “father” to “mother” and Kate gestured the sign of the cross in the air, encouraging Seth to proceed.

“The more you hate me, the more I enjoy you.” Seth cooed.  
“I don’t hate you!”  
“And here I almost had you pegged for a straight shooter.” Seth teased.  
“In which case, I will require the bullets in your revolver.” Kate clicked her tongue with a boastful grin. “Hand ‘em over.”  
“That my penance?”  
“Only way to salvation.” She confirmed.  
“Whatever it takes.” Seth moved forward and lifted his shirt concealing the weapon. Pulling the revolver from his waist with eyes fixed on Kate’s, he watched them follow the territory of exposed abdomen, rather than the firearm. “Katie, you’re blushing.” He lied. Kate shook her head with a shameless smile. She hadn’t been strategic in her glances, just intoxicated.

“Can I try something else?” Kate deflected. Seth smirked curiously, his revolver pointing to God and rotating the chamber empty. Bullets fell heavy in his open palm.  
“Something _else_?” Seth questioned in amusement, handing over the bullets. Kate knelt across the table, two hands extended to catch the clinking ammunition.  
“Yeah, you know. Like you said.” Seth’s smile was laden with concern.  
“Is that what you want?”  
“We’ll know when I do it and if it’s good or not.”  
“Breathtaking.” Seth’s unclear commentary was engaged and introspective. “Anything specific in mind?” His tone was challenging.  
“Dealer’s choice.”  
“Too easy.”  
“Fine, something that makes you feel good and happy, not sleepy or like, weighed-down, ya’ know?”  
“I do.” Seth stood up. He looked down at Kate, still on her knees. She looked so out of place. She didn’t belong anywhere near him. Wide-eyes and red cheeks; swollen lips looking full and a bird’s eye view down her dress.  
“Might as well go out with a bang.” Kate said, dropping the bullets carelessly to her left, her eyes locked on his.

Seth turned on his heal and grabbed some bottles off the back table. He couldn’t register if she knew what she was doing or not. He had no understanding of sobriety past his adolescence, and she had never used before. But she was clever. Seth wanted to believe she was having a good time, however drug-induced it may have been. Then again, it may have been the push she needed to ‘lighten-the-fuck-up.’

“Are you thirsty?” Seth inquired.  
“Almost always.” Kate rested her elbows on the table and sat back on her heels. “We’re in a desert, Seth. In Mexico. It’s hot.”  
“Drink this.” Seth tossed her a chilled bottle from the nearly-barren fridge.  
“Water. Not what I had in mind…” Kate twisted the cap off, her hand shaking from thirst. She took a mouthful of water and couldn’t swallow it fast enough. One greedy gulp became a seamless chug. She consumed the contents of the bottle without coming up for air. “But nothing to smirk at.” She exhaled.

“Jesus Christ…” Seth conceded, impressed with her speed, somewhat panged with guilt for her deprivation.  
“Hydration is essential.”  
“Hate to see you as a Culebra.” Seth shook his head.  
“Please, you’d never see me coming.” Kate sassed.  
“I’m not sure I’d want to.”  
“You wouldn’t.” Kate’s words carried a heavy sentiment of hatred but was too playful to combat outright.  
“Would you kill me, Katie Cakes?” Seth toyed with the music before heading back to Kate with suspicion. “Sink your teeth into the frontier justice you crave.”  
“I don’t need fangs to tear your throat out.” Kate was dancing a dangerous line between banter and threatening. Her blood boiled at the sound of him calling her by her father’s former endearment. She had to tread carefully. “Why the water, anyway?” She casually added.

“Guess there’s no point in asking if you’ve had X before--”  
“X?”  
“Ecstasy. I think you’ll like it. This is the pill but has the come-on of a senator’s high priced whore if you crush it up and drink it down.”  
“I just drank it already?” Kate was somewhat annoyed.  
“I think we’ve established that if I want to drug you, you’ll know it.” Seth held another water bottle in his hand which he shook wildly in the air. Kate watched small traces of a crushed pill swirl into disintegration. “Makes you thirsty. People can drink themselves to death while on it.” Seth continued, handing her the bottle. “Or, afraid they’ll do just that, people won’t drink at all and die anyway.”  
“Uh—” Kate stared at the sweating drink before her. Tempted to quench her insatiable thirst but leery of the poison.  
“I won’t let you drown or dehydrate. Hence the complimentary bottle of imported, dysentery-free water. Bottoms up, Cupcake.” Seth finished, standing over her.  
“Aw, he does care, folks.” Kate prodded, before drinking the second bottle with the same swiftness as the first. A Spanish rendition of “Hotel California” strummed beautifully in the background.

Seth watched a thin line of water drip down Kate’s neck in a mad dash for the opening of her dress. Without hesitation, he leaned down and caught the bead. He flicked his tongue across the droplet. Kate didn’t bother flinching or reacting. Seth was in a perpetual battle for dominance with everyone he’d ever know. The more she fought it, the worse it got.

“If I were a Culebra, Seth,” Kate _needed_ to make it worse. “I’d drink you up.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating again in a few hours with stuff that will a) upset the living shit out of you or b) book your one-way ticket to Hell beside me.
> 
> Enjoy and chill the fuck out. It's mischief night and I feel like unleashing some of the bad.
> 
> Back in a tick.
> 
> \---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt  
> "Never Tear Us Apart" by: INXS  
> "Love Me the Way I Love You" by: Jerry Vale  
> "Sweet Caroline" by: Neil Diamond  
> "Sleep Walk" by: Santo & Johnny Farina  
> "Girl" by: Davy Jones  
> "America the Beautiful" by: Ray Charles  
> "She's Not There" by: Carlos Santana  
> "Father Figure" by: George Michael  
> "Beggin'" by: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons  
> "Hotel California" by: Gipsy Kings


	17. Remission

Seth felt the hair on the back of his neck standup. Slinking back to his side of the table, he was confounded by the thwarting awareness of excitement. It was a sucker punch of a feeling but not one that he altogether condemned. Seth could pounce now, but he wasn’t angry. He didn’t feel threatened or rejected. Seth felt desired. Desired in the most peculiar way, but he knew the feeling well once and he knew it again then. Kate was playing a dangerous game. Seth eased back into his chair, silencing the satisfaction of his discovery. ‘he was playing against herself and she was going to lose.

“You want a taste, killer? Climb on, I won’t stop you.” Seth gestured to his lap.  
“Ask me again in two rounds.”  
“I won’t have to.” Seth trailed his index finger along his jawline. “Your go.”

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Kate paused, disgusted by the words. He could have been so much more than he was. He was the dark twin of everything good in a man. Even in parody, calling him ‘father’ was unsettling but no more than the look he got on his face when she said it. The way his eyes spiked with interest and achievement made Kate hate herself just as much as she hated Seth. ‘Keep it together, Kate. Survive him.’

“No, I never really saw _one_.” Kate confessed innocently.  
“I remain impressed.” Seth was delighted by her candor and the direction her confessions had taken their conversation. Their shared atmosphere was hypnotic. Seth’s body was hot, the tattoos feeling like true fire under his skin. Every innuendo, suggestion, bite from her was fueling his firmness on behalf of the End Game.  
“It’s not a big deal or anything.” She concluded modestly.  
“Depends what you feast your eyes on.” Seth was still and present. Kate shrugged under the scope of his sadistic glare. “Never wanted to, too scared to, both?” Seth began his interrogation smooth as sandpaper.  
“Didn’t need to.” Kate replied coyly.  
“Most adolescent behaviors are spawned from idle curiosities. Hell, succumbing to them is a rite of passage in itself.”  
“We had Health Class. I got the idea.”  
“Sex Ed in the Lone-Star State? I kinda doubt that.”  
“You wanna audit the class?” Kate rolled her eyes.  
“I’m too busy teaching it; and I work my students hard. It’s a very hands-on practicum.”  
“I certainly challenge your position as an educator.”  
“What a coincidence, my class is all about challenging positions.” Seth’s eyes lit up with bad ideas.  
“Your curriculum’s emphasis seems disproportionate to its overall scholastic value.” Kate retorted. Seth let out a heavy, forlorn exhale and slunk deeper into his chair.

“I should have been more involved with you _academically_. Knowledge is power, after all.”  
“Power for who?” Kate’s tone was all too severe a response for Seth’s playful declaration, even if it wasn’t playful at all. Seth appeared genuinely disappointed and somewhat saddened by the lost opportunities.  
“I guess we’ll see.” He answered just as sincere.  
  
“Your penance is to answer my questions three. Number one, have you ever felt one? Over the clothes counts. Number two, has anyone ever gotten a hand, eye or mouthful of you? And number three, what do you think would have happened if I didn’t walk in on you and Richie? Please explain your answers, and respond in full sentences.”

Kate held her breath for a moment. Her interest in the game was genuine. The banter had been a missed perk of being Seth Gecko’s hostage/accomplice and partner-in-survival. If ever there was to be something redemptive from all that had happened, she was sure it was going to happen on this night. Entanglement with the romanticized image of Seth was easy and welcoming. Everyone has a lie they light a candle for. A lie as dear as it is fallen. It cannot be purged from the body or mind. The soul forever marred by the toxicity of its barbed roots. Seth was Kate’s lie. The tricks and games would forever foster a dangerous hope that he would inevitably become all that she wished he was. Kate had trouble looking at Seth, ever-handsome in his ruin. The drugs had surely taken a toll on her, she had to remind herself second after second, that she was heavily impaired.

Kate pondered the best route to fulfill Seth’s penance. She needed to give him enough to keep him involved and unguarded without becoming unguarded by her own involvement. She pulled her still-damp hair over her left shoulder. Exposing bruises gathered around her neck. Seth tensed at the sight of the damage he’d fathered. Kate held her shoulders straight and bust outward with pride. Overwhelming Seth visually, to help distract from any one thought of his getting carried away with itself, was a good start.

“No, I have never felt one and therefore can offer little elaboration on the matter. If one were to inquire as to the estimated vicinity I have come to contact, I would respond with an approximation of “moderate proximity.” To define: contact was over the clothes, located in the mid-to-upper thigh region, while in a supine position, and no further south than the beltline while standing.” Kate exhaled heavily.  
“Bravo, Sister Christian. Keep going.” Seth gifted an unobtrusive slow-clap, absorbing every diplomatic word of Kate’s answer, for further analyzing.  
“The second question…” Kate began but abruptly halted, realizing she had updated information to disclose.  
“Proceed. At length. Please.” Seth waved Kate on.  
“Kyle kept the same boundaries with touching me, as I did with him. There was never any contact below the belt or under the clothes.”  
“Pity.”  
“With the exception of my parents or Scott, as children, no one has gotten an ‘eyeful’ of anything you wouldn’t normally see.” Kate answered continued.  
“Wasteful.”  
“Regarding mouths, you know all of my indiscretions.”  
“You need to say it. Rules are rules, Rule Breaker.” Seth was holding to principle, something he typically did not do. Kate acknowledged this as a good indication of Seth feeling in control. Something she could not abide.  
“Nothing beyond making out, or kissing on the mouth, and _nowhere_ else, has ever transpired between myself and anyone else ever.”  
“Wasn’t so hard, was it?”  
“This has taken place on three different occasions.” Kate furthered, like a knife twisting in Seth’s ego.  
  
“Three? Why you have been keeping secrets, you harlot.” He combatted with intrigue.  
“No, I haven’t. My answers simply require an addendum.”  
“To which question?”  
“Both.”  
“Which subgroup?”  
“All.”  
“I’ll allow it.” Seth narrowed his sight on Kate who had taken to regard him as less of a satirical priest, and more of a pesky clinician prying into her sexual history when they both knew it had no bearing on the matters at hand. Kate knew the best course of action was to overload his inquiries with the ugliest details she had in her arsenal. He wanted breathy fumbling’s in the dark, so she’d give him lengthy portrayals of menstrual cycle nightmares.  
  
“At the Titty Twister, in the maze. Sex Machine had his hands on me.”  
“Come again?” Seth propped up in his chair. His movements were sudden and determined, startling Kate.  
“We were separated from everyone else. He had me cornered and tried offering me up to who-slash-whatever was in the dark with us.”  
“You’re jerkin’ my chain.” Seth refuted.  
“He grabbed me, wrestled me, threw me over his shoulder and pinned me down.”  
“I can’t tell if you’re seriously kinky or seriously serious.” Seth spoke with a slight quake in his voice.  
“He touched me a lot. Had his hands all over my body, up my legs, my stomach, everywhere.”  
“Did he touch you? Hurt you, I mean?” Seth’s vague concern was strewn across his face, eyes squinting, jaw clenched; the tension bunching in his shoulders, over crossed arms displayed a discomfort he knew would only be alleviated by enduring the whole truth.

Kate was careful not to misconstrue his behavior for that of actual care or concern for her well-being. Seth was territorial, dog-like and struggled with the confession because he wasn’t used to feeling robbed.

“He was handsy but mostly focused on tying me up on the stone alter for sacrifice.” Kate spoke nonchalantly, looking directly into Seth’s eyes. A fury had built up from within. His darkness billowed to the surface, surging to his eyes. Kate watched them closely. They had been wide, thoughtful and curious moments before. Staring into the pitch black void they’d become was an amusement Kate dared to indulge.  
“He had you in bondage.” His voice was devoid of personality, lost in the same place in his mind as the tunnel vision he looked through projected from.  
“Ethically-compromised mad men typically don’t make for the most principled educators. And yet, he’s tenured.” She teased.  
“Stop that. This isn’t funny.” He snapped.  
“I was a human sacrifice, Seth, it’s kind of funny. If he fucked me, he wouldn’t be able to use me. No one likes a virgin quite like someone trying to sacrifice one.”  
“How could you not tell me this?” The inflection in his phrasing was both suspect and offended.  
“How could I?”  
“He’s a dead bastard.” Seth relented, chasing a flood of visuals he was barely able to shake from his skull.  
  
“I’m not done.” Kate found herself in a pregnant pause, languishing in the torment it placed on Seth. “You’ve touched me too.” Kate disoriented Seth with a cheerful expression on her face and heightened pitch, melodically recalling the occasions in which Seth had _handled_ her. He was unsure of how much she would be able to remember in her state, how much she’d want to dangle for conversation, or how she could even navigate the unspoken truth of their present reality. His eyes were fixed on her every movement and mannerism, desperate for a break in understanding her state of mind.  
  
“That’s all different though, I know.” Kate spoke coolly, with mercy and comfort on her tongue. Seth exhaled in stages, relieved but transfixed all the same. He was afraid to add his two cents for fear of further sting from her untamed candor. The scariest thing one must do is face their soul. Seth relied on running out the clock instead and Kate was throwing a wrench in that plan.  
  
“I didn’t know the professor,” Kate went on, to Seth’s dismay. “I knew you though.” Kate exhaled a shy giggle. “You and I have been together for so long now. We’ve had so much time to do things and learn things, go places, hide places, have adventures.” Her eyes glittered perfection. Seth endured her high.  
“All the time in our world became all the time in _the_ world, I guess.” Seth forced a guilt-ridden smile.  
“I’ve never known anyone the way I know you.”  
“It’s been an honor.” Seth pleaded subliminally.  
  
“You’ve done so many more things than Sex Machine ever could. All of it so much worse. But I guess you had more time to.” Kate landed her blow with expert precision. “Your hands, your body, your mouth. You’ve seen me naked. I’ve seen you naked. I even felt you naked. You’ve hurt me—touched me, violated me, and just look at my face.” Seth rose to refute the claims but stopped suddenly, flashes of shattered memories scattered across his mind. “All Richie ever did was kiss me. And that was after I kissed him.”  
  
“Dead Kid, Dracula and the Devil makes three.” Seth confirmed.  
“Everything went topsy-turvy and nobody told me it was going to.” Kate whispered aloud to herself.  
“Everything usually does.” She hadn’t expected a response. Seth sounded more and more like his brother. Every fractured thought devoted to him was smothered in some obscure clemency for simply not being present in that hotel room.

“Third question.” Seth reminded, clearing his throat and immensely regretting his initial curious audacity.  
“I know, right!” Kate tittered playfully. “I would like one shot of your most disgusting alcohol please.”  
“Oh, so now you’re done talkin’?” Seth shot back incredulously. Kate simply nodded, pupils dilated, flicking her shot glass across the table for Seth to top off. Again, he obliged. His heart racing. His guilt and anger melded as one. He shouldn’t have followed her lead so intensely, so soon. He was at a disadvantage somehow. As if speaking it aloud suddenly made it something he needed to disprove. Damage control was all he could bear to covet. He needed to regain lost footing. He needed the illusion of control back.

Kate swallowed her shot without acknowledging the burn. Her body was making a quiet transition to bliss. She could scarcely recall the emotions of distress she’d known only moments before. “Your go.”

***

Seth angled his body to appeal to Kate’s tenderness. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, clasped hands locked under his chin. A few swigs of vodka and he was able to remove most of the blood from his mouth. He relaxed his body, posturing like a bashful, 17 year old outcast, about to ask the Prom Queen to dance. As if all that mattered or could ever matter in his world suddenly depended on the responsiveness of Kate’s sympathies.

“I remember clear as day, the moment I knew I wanted you.” Seth confessed shyly. He feigned an aversion to eye contact. Looking at the floor with mock-humility. Kate’s insides were giddy and screaming pleasantries of Ecstasy hard at work. Seth brushed his fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck: strategically self-conscious. “And how all that _‘want’_ just kept growing. Then aching…” The pause was pulsating with the heavy longing for resolution. Seth wasn’t yet ready to submit, however. True to form, he continued with a wordy monologue instead.

“The festering; the disgusting nightmare of blackouts, hallucinations and babysitting eating me alive since that spectacularly ill-fated moment. All in solitude… _for so long_. I could feel it rotting inside me, like an infection. Gangrenous, eating me alive and turning everything to filth and making the fucking Titty Twister Massacre look like a Goddamn Penney’s catalog at Christmas. You just sat there so pristine, and hopeful. Pure. Fucking cute and tight. Usually barely dressed and what you did wear was mine. It’s been a sharp, hungry, anger ever since and I’ve fucking hated every fucking second of it.” He leaned in, halfway across the table.

“Big bad Seth and his dirty fucking drugs, the only solace to be had from the actual addiction—all hand-in-fucking-hand, running off into the sunset with Crybaby-Kate’s luxury-daydream of a ‘topsy-turvy everything.’” He clicked his tongue, venomous and fevered with tragic wrath.

“So, broadcasting live from the bottomless pit of Loathsome-ass-fuck-Hellfire and Shit, ‘Suck my dick, you cock-teasing Lolita.’” Seth was red-faced and free.

“Sounds more like cancer.” She responded. Seth’s mouth hung agape.  
“That’s what you have to say. That’s your diagnosis. That’s it, that’s all you’ve got.”  
“I’m afraid it’s a waiting game at this point, Seth.” She eagerly grew more affectionate and grateful he didn’t truly have cancer. Kate was half-conscious to his rage, but positively delighted just to have someone to talk to.  
“You are high as a drag racing Tie-Fighter.” His efforts were futile.

Kate felt strange in his silence. She knew her truths, her objectives and motivators. Though they didn’t seem to be of major concern. Everything was just magnificent as it was in that moment. Seth was distraught. The compulsion to help him alleviate his inner turmoil was hindered by her empathetic approach which she wanted perfected before executing. Seth. She knew Seth. Seth wasn’t the worst. He was okay.

***

“Was it when we crashed that thing that one time—” Determined to help her friend Seth, Seth who had given her such a wonderful cocktail of blissful objectivity, Seth who had sad-cancer to beat—‘a friend in need, is a friend indeed’ and Seth was certainly all that.  
“‘Tobias’s Bar Mitzvah Weekend Extravaganza’ with the Rolex-Raffle and Bon Jovi on karaoke, then we went snorkeling and you smoked pot out of a coconut and an ant crawled in your nose?” Kate’s memory was shockingly entwined with her emotions. She’d recalled one of her favorite memories with Seth. It had been suppressed for so long and for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she would allow such a precious moment to slip away when life was so short and full of other plenty of things to make you cry.  
  
“No, but that was a good one.” He couldn’t help but melt a little. “Why, was that yours?”  
“Nice try, Anderson Cooper.” Kate winked at Seth. She didn’t pry, though she had grounds to. Her reluctance to press for details or compliments had Seth hustling to divulge everything. He knew she was high but it was always a chore figuring out the sort of person one will become when lifted. Watching Kate was no chore, but it was certainly more difficult to gauge and process. Coupled with his own toxins, he supposed she’d remain a mystery until the conversation commanded action.

“Back when we were still actively trying to survive, you know, makin’ ourselves scarce, blending in like lost tourists with sunstroke—”  
“We ate so much Italian food—so much bad Italian food though.”  
“The worst. We always went out.” Seth painted a picture of better times. The dust had settled and they were strong enough to pretend they were strong enough to start living again. At that point, there’s no difference when your only company is not only your greatest fixation but strongest competitor as well.  
“Always doing something. I liked that.” Kate listlessly tilted her head. There were long stretches of days—maybe weeks—where Seth and she had lived without four walls. They’d stay busy trying to convince one another that they could _live_ that they tended to bleed together. When sleep was needed, they’d camp on the beach. Always during the day, while the sun was up and they were in public. Yet they never felt more camouflaged or rested.  
  
“ _Anything_. We did anything we wanted all the time.”  
“I remember that.” Kate confirmed.  
“You remember that real angry S.O.B. that touched down in Baja Cali?”  
“The storm, you mean?”  
“Only the Mother-of-All.” Kate nodded her head quickly in frightful agreement.

 “I remember the weeks on the Baja Sur where we were some-sorta-happy.” The confession fell out of his mouth to his own surprise. “Sun had us roasted, jellyfish were merciless, destination hotspot crawling with diabetic tourists. Probably not the brightest idea—Britney Spears and O, Brother Where Art Thou, cruising around in a stolen Range Rover, having dinner dates with Betty and Phil of Second-Honeymoon, Minnesota.”  
“We made the most adorable couple to ever confuse the Midwest.” Kate pretended to tip an invisible hat.  
“The envy of every newlywed on the Island.” Seth concurred.  
“You couldn’t get enough of their love stories. I was dying then, but I was happy. Felt okay, like everything was done being a Goddamn car-bomb, crash site crime scene.”

Seth paused briefly, collecting his thoughts. It was a bittersweet call to nobler times. He knew himself then. He knew the man Kate spoke of knowing. Hearing her describe his monstrous deeds, and chronicle the perverse corruption of his character, was devastating. Perhaps a manipulation or dictation of sub-conscious musings, Seth had still been caught off guard with the reality of his transformation from man to beast.

“Storm was coming in _hot_.” He went on with his story in stride. “Was the first time I felt afraid in a long time.” Kate could scarcely endure the upset Seth was projecting. “Panic, just too many people, everywhere and they’re pushing and pulling at each other like Goddamn savages. Then you got lost in the surge—”  
“You broke like six noses trying to get to me.” Kate chimed quickly. She felt special and worthy of protection and that day was a testament to her regained acceptance of self-worth.  
“I’d have broken more but needed one hand to hold yours.” Seth replied with a wry grin.

“Barely made it out of Dodge and before the ocean took a massive bite out of the coast.” He snapped his fingers. “Gone. Like it never was. And we’re still six hours from Sinaloa, crossing the Gulf of California on a ferry with Wi-Fi and a Thai artisan who wrote your name on a grain of rice. Shamelessly wavin’ our dicks at Fate.”  
“You made a superb travel agent.” Kate taunted his nostalgia.  
“I thought we were goners, Kate. I thought that our luck had run out. $176 Americana to sail _into_ a storm and drown in the marina equivalent of a Viking’s Valhallan battle-cry.”    
“What a lame way to die after everything.” Kate regarded.  
  
“I thought that too for about half a second. Boils down to it though, dying is all the same really. Take my chances in the belly of a whale over a bloodsucking mutant with no respect for choice leather.” Seth confessed, sounding snobbish and enlightened at the same time. If he had depth, he didn’t show it and if he was shallow, he didn’t care. “There was something electric about the whole thing though— _the voyage_.” Seth was treading closer to the event horizon which altered him and disrupted his peace with Kate.  
  
“The sky was getting dark and water went black—looked like an oil spill—still no rain, just dark. Waves start spashin’ on deck, then crashing on deck. And there you were, holding the railing.  Damn-crazy little girl you just know saw Titanic too many times.”  
“My heart still goes on…” Her whisper was reverent and serene.  
“Hands down the most obvious American to ever be oblivious in a foreign country.”  
“It’s called _living_ Seth. You should try it sometime.” Kate played the dramatic, releasing her ego and forgetting to take herself seriously.  
“I couldn’t move fast enough to pull you back inside.”  
“I was just—” Kate raced to her own defense, impassioned with the confidence of a much more assertive woman.  
“’Looking,’ I know but so was I and what I saw wasn’t something I wanted to lose to Poseidon.”  
“And that was your horrendous moment of damnation?” Kate posed.  
“Part of it.”

Kate remembered everything about that trip. It had begun like most: a desperate ploy to stay alive and out of sight. At the time, they went hand-in-hand. Barely alive, with little concern to stay off anyone’s radar, Kate’s heightened emotionality was drawn to the joy of having known times had once been good. Her thoughts deviated from the present circumstances and imminent danger she was in. She nibbled on her lip. It was sore but not in the way she had once known sore to be like. The sensation was stirring and multi-flavored. The fluttering gladness rising in her chest made her skin tingle and insides relax. She was fluid elation. It was difficult to focus on the matter at hand. It had all been so misleading. Her synthetic euphoria was no different than the paradise of the island. She loved them both with all her heart and soul. She loved the man who provided her with such raptures. She loved the lie he spun for her; the counterfeit dreamland built of her fantasies and high hopes. She loved the art of his manipulation. She loved to love it all.

“Penance?” She suggested.  
“Hit me with it.”  
“What was the breaking point?” Kate solicited, more eager to gaze at the lights and feel the music thrumming in her heart than sift through the dismal highlights of her history with Seth. Seth was prepared for the call. He was a natural born storyteller. He lit up the room with his enthusiasm and connection to the words he spoke. In another life, he’d have made a brilliant actor. He’d either thought of the moment often, or practiced talking about it often. Kate was charmed regardless, and he with her—for now.  
   
“You were standing pretty in that little number. Probably wore it 100 times before but I never noticed. Wouldn’t have greenlit it if I did, was a little short for public viewing, in my opinion. Stood no damn chance against the wind. The waves were worse, splashing it to transparency.” Seth was genuinely uncomfortable in the interrogation chair.

“I remember I got this very distinct, very serious feeling. This want—no—need to look _away._ Like I was seeing too much some something I wasn’t supposed to. The longer I looked, the less I felt allowed to. Was like being eleven years old again, at the exact moment being eleven years old is the worst thing in the world you can be.” Kate watched Seth agonize over the ordeal. He was an expert kid but master of loss. Somewhere in the chaos of it all, she brought his big hurts together.

“We get back to the room. No space, no air, the boat is being juggled by the Pacific and you just… didn’t seem phased. You were so cool. Throwing your bag on the bed, lipstick and things fell out. Your back was to me, but your shoulders were careless and I envied that resolution. I kept a distance, suddenly more aware of our closeness for some reason. You pulled your hair to the side, like you’ve got it now. Didn’t say anything but gestured a tug at the tie knotted around your neck. Tasking me to untangle the bind.”  
  
Seth’s reflections were insecure and uneasy. She could destroy him. Every word he uttered was a round in the chamber. But the release was long overdue and he’d needed her to know how responsible she was for everything he had done and would do.  
    
“I don’t know how long it took, or didn’t take to get the straps off. It was too fast either way. You were holding the front of your dress up against your chest, I guess so it wouldn’t just fall to the floor in a wet, see-through taunt, however naïve a gesture. Because you’re right. I have seen you naked. I had before then, I did after. But watching you, guarding your decency or whatever it was you still wanted to pretend I hadn’t seen a million times before— man, it spun me. I could not look at you. I couldn’t even sneak a glance. Felt like I was stealing and I didn’t want to be a thief anymore or didn’t know how, or both.” Seth peered through serious eyes for the mercy of the drugged-up teenager he had no business being enthralled by.

“You terrified me.” He had devoted his repentance to mortification.  
“Good.” The word was a delicious salutation rolling off her tongue. Ever-so-sweetly jarring Seth with the chokehold of vulnerability cornered by cruelly suspended approval.  
  
Seth’s hopes had been asphyxiated with a single syllable. He despised her being with such irrational delirium, he cursed existence as a whole. He wasn’t the monster because he’d loved her. She was the monster for letting him.

All pretty things play tricks, he conceded. There’s no game in all the world more spectacular, than fooling someone into loving the person we pretend to be. If he’d voiced this aloud, Kate would weep over everything she'd lost at the hands of Seth's version of truth. Seth was such a pretty thing to Kate, full of tricks he tormented Kate with.  All the time in the world was spent spinning a lie he’d succumb to believing himself. Seth was fooled by his own talent for deceit. In his mind, he was the man Kate stooped to love, and she the heartless Loki, tempting him to chase her high. Seth had been playing games against himself and the decent man he once was had finally lost. The prize was Kate. Destined for the pains of the Devil's victory.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will be spitting the next few chapters out all day. Had to wrestle things about. Remember this concludes Round 2... Rules are important now.
> 
>  
> 
> SONG LIST  
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt  
> "Never Tear Us Apart" by: INXS  
> "Love Me the Way I Love You" by: Jerry Vale  
> "Sweet Caroline" by: Neil Diamond  
> "Sleep Walk" by: Santo & Johnny Farina  
> "Girl" by: Davy Jones  
> "America the Beautiful" by: Ray Charles  
> "She's Not There" by: Carlos Santana  
> "Father Figure" by: George Michael  
> "Beggin'" by: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons  
> "Hotel California" by: Gipsy Kings  
> Happy Together" by: Filter  
> "Nights In White Satin" by: The Moody Blues  
> "Something I Can Never Have" by: Nine Inch Nails


	18. Hubris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been debating the morality of posting so much content on this story, I've kinda just fillabustered it this far. Not for lack of follow through but I did hope something would change my mind. Saw the finale, figure if they can say "fuck it" so can I.

Kate’s actions to appear compliant were inspired but naïve and damning. She’d gambled too recklessly. Seth responded with a hearty dose of ecstasy. A synthetic drug notorious for its sensory manipulation. Like those lifted on the stuff, it is intense, well-intentioned, affectionate and uninhibited. In concept, the chemical was as deserving of fanfare as penicillin. It was romantic and beautiful. Following the trip across a charmed plane, safe from fear and judgement, Kate surrendered to the drug’s promised bliss. It was, at least in that moment, the cure for a sickness she denied having altogether.

Kate had lost her ability to properly decipher negative expressions. She hadn’t yet felt the full effects of her cocktail, but what she did feel, she wanted to share with the world. The lights were brighter, colors more vivid, music more beautiful and air icy and clean. It was all so intoxicating. Kate’s body temperature rose with her heartbeat and overall sense of well-being. She’d lost sight of Seth’s danger. His true nature was concealed by the haze of optimism flooding her psyche.

“Your go.” Seth’s voice was focused and strong. “How you feeling, by the way?” Seth inquired. A devilish smirk on his face. She could not register its intent, just that it was a remarkable sight to behold. “Rainbow Road as mesmerizing as I remember?”  
“This is the exact place to be. You should be here too. Everything is…” Kate rolled her tongue around her mouth, across her teeth and inside her cheeks. There was no all-encompassing word to describe what she was experiencing but she didn’t mind trying: “Perfection.”

Kate went head on into Round Three, at peace with the silly opening, and eager to build on the heightened feelings of closeness she had for Seth. There were so many confessions that had suddenly spun to mind. Each one as important as the last. She wanted to break free of the game’s parameters and dissect the cosmos with the gorgeous man she couldn’t help but enjoy presently.

“So many things.” She began.  
“I don’t believe there’s a limit.” Seth comforted.  
“You’re so beautiful.” Kate wasn’t entirely sure if she’d spoken aloud but if she had, she felt better for it. “You’re wild and strong, and mysterious. You have that jaw and you’re so cool. You’re just the coolest guy of-ever.” Kate wasn’t sure what was happening but the more she looked at Seth, the longer she held his gaze, the more intense everything became. She didn’t know how much of it was real but she knew she wasn’t lying.

Seth was caught off guard. MDMA is a tricky drug to navigate from the outside looking in, and he wished he could have been of more use to Kate on her journey—ever the deranged teacher. Her energy was infectious. He knew it was too soon for her to have plateaued yet. The anticipation was torture.  
“Is that your confession?” He sought clarification, not exactly sure how to press on.  
“No, I just thought you should know. I should have told you before. I probably would have if your drugs weren’t the angry sort that brought us to the now.” Discussing traumas was cathartic and simple. She was empathetic and forgiving of his hostility.  
“Feelings are mutual.” He tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair, watching her find the rhythm of the room. She raised her shoulders and outstretched her arms, reaching toward the fan above. It made her dizzy and refreshed with its bottled-wind. Stretching was unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was a soothing release, emerging as heat from her core and spreading in through her limbs.

“This must be what glitter feels like.” Kate professed. Seth hid a charmed-smile but cleared his throat to nudge her on. The game was barring him from the promise of a good time and the further Kate slipped into oblivion, the less of one he’d have.

“Katie, let’s do speed rounds, what do you say?” She was about to fall down the rabbit hole and he didn’t want to miss a second of it.  
“Speed rounds? Cocaine!” Kate exclaimed, thrilled at the idea.  
“That too. Tell you what, I’m gonna—”  
“You didn’t have to get rough with me,” Kate began matter-of-factly, “to get me naked.” She finished starring into the tunnel vision Seth knew she was losing herself to. His own eyes widened with welcomed surprise. Her words were graphic, out-of-context and abrasive. He needed more.

The dissonance of the room’s music was beguiling. Seth watched the thrumming melody slay Kate into a radical obedience, as she moved her body in rhythmic, perfect union. Kate saw the cosmos through closed eyes. Seth’s voice was a thrill with narcotic authority. Her muscles surged with the blissful need to bend and twirl through a vortex of wanton motions. Seth fell into a possessive gaze, climbing with eager fury and shock. She moved with the confidence and ease of a practiced seductress.

Seth was overwhelmed with the hot flush of a primitive tension. His carnality roused with inspiration. The familiar tug— throbbing, devilish intent, no longer suppressed by the inhibited vexations of Kate.  
“Prove it.” He dared. Unwilling to forfeit one second of her, he shifted in his seat. A sensitivity in his core which steadily grew in both pleasure and ache. “Take your panties off.”  
“Now?”  
“Fast as you can, dirty dancer.”  
Kate drew her hands up the side of her dress, wriggling her hips from side to side and in under an instant, they fell around her ankles. She’d exquisitely carried out his alarming command without so much as exposing the bare inches above her knees. She kicked them in a glide under the table, landing them at Seth’s feet. Professionalism at its best.

A spasm of need worsened Seth’s haste. The torment was a raging swell of lust and dangerous masculinity. The spread of sensuality ran feverish up his spine, radiating on the back of his neck and melting through him with raw command. “I regularly question whether or not I made it out of the Maze.” He confessed, unprompted.  
“You almost did,” Kate purred. “But you ran into your own with reckless abandon.” Kate spoke like a goddess, full of wisdom and luxury. Her candor was fearless, her motions were damn heroic. “Go clean up. Put on your best Gecko costume. We’ll be the best dressed prisoners this Temple’s ever seen.” Kate delivered her penance swiftly and devilish.  
“Leave you here alone? Now? Not a chance.” Seth countered gruffly.  
“Richie would,” Kate sighed. “Sometimes I think I liked him most.” The blow was devastating. He’d indulged her high, but it wasn’t armor.

*** 

The concept of pain was so beyond foreign to Kate in her ecstasy high that she’d lost her footing in conversation more than once. The drug wasn't foolproof. She was highly aware of what she said and how they'd make Seth feel, but had genuine trouble registering the signs of disapproval that glared back at her. She had just risen to the euphoria of a heightened spiritual realization. She felt pardoned by herself, from the backlash of Seth's temper. She wasn't a sadist, she wasn't anything like him, really. In her core, she was still Kate. Her truths rose steadily in waves of intense understanding. Her plateau landed her 180 degrees away from a moment ago. Sweeping her from the welcome embrace of frivolity and into the tumultuous inferno of overdue-conflict.

Kate’s body spun with amazement and pleasure, and she anticipated every flinch of movement she made. She was the soul of her best self, waltzing with her flawless body. The music was suspense and beauty raring with the rushed promises of an explosive high. Heat and power radiated like the force of nature she was and she was the dynamite of God’s wrath.

 There was nothing delicate about the persuasion. Arousal riveted through Kate without shame or scandal. Kate was ignited by the truest hunger. This was the price of the Love Drug. It stipulated a transaction of profound complexity. Her needs were searing, fused to the fierce man lost to a madness all his own. Kate didn’t quite understand the terms of her immediate high but was unable to shy from the demand.

Seth’s collection of ego bruises had been vastly expanded by Kate. Still, her glance was a sultry tease too alluring to dismiss on principle alone. She was an expert novice, perpetually in over-her-head but Seth was cold, calculating, and once-upon-a-time: a fucking professional. He could go collecting with the full force of a hotheaded brute but why mess up a good thing?

 The volatile rivalry with Richie clanged with the startling hazards of malevolent determination.  Tempered by the vow of compensation, Seth pacified his manic disarray with cunning. His brother could curry favor with Kate’s childlike understanding of sex and men. The affection wouldn’t take her past the guard of her father’s rule and brother’s watch, even now— Hell, especially now. The truth of Richie had always been on the surface, readily available for anyone who wanted to live in eternal fear.

 The only reason Richie hadn’t laid a finger on Kate was because of Scott’s defiant compulsion to overthrow the bastard brothers. He was a liability. A Chinese firecracker that’d go off in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and get everybody killed. Worse rather, he’d give rise to the brothers being apprehended. Killing him was the obvious choice, but panicking the Preacher and his daughter could’ve proved just as problematic. It was as a sort of insurance policy, that they did not harm or defile Kate in any way. Limiting the extracurricular fun-times would pay off hand-over-fist in prison. Killing Scott, they’d probably go a few rounds in the yard for that; if only because he was a kid. But showing a Girl Scout a bad time? The brothers knew better. Prison was no place for a rapist.

 “I accept.” Seth consented to the sharpness of Kate’s disillusionment. Kate collided with the crisp move through the air, as Seth propped her in his chair. She was bound by soiled neckties before she could register any hiccup in security. Seth was fairly convinced she wouldn’t have gone screaming to the police in her state. All the more reason, he felt, to cage it. The last thing he wanted was his doped up fuck-toy-to-be, frolicking on the streets alone in shady-territory, Mexico.

***

The outlaw vanished from sight and into the bathroom. The steam had clouded around the door, left ajar. He collected himself under the hot water. Truthfully, it was a cold shower he needed but the momentum was beyond his control. The threat of arousal climbed with fervency. Seth wrestled with his need for release. The tenderness was a battle of urgency and yearning. His voracity charged, impassioned and dynamic. This wasn’t his first rodeo— but at the rate he was going—it was all about to go down the drain.

Kate purred regarding the severity of Seth’s contact. It didn’t register as particularly harsh. Similarly, the loss of her cheekies didn’t appear indecent or sinister-minded. She was, however, hyper-aware of just how disconnected she had been from the absence of touch. It was soothing, electric, and novel in its rebirth. Kate was an inexperienced fire-starter, but to say she hadn’t enjoyed the heat would be a lie. She grew introspective in the wake of Seth’s absenteeism. Her love of experience was far more intense and valuable than the intrusion of any fear or misguided assumptions she’d formed to combat her pristine cowardice.

The enveloping warmth of the shower only further provoked Seth’s extremity. He was rigid and engorged. The stiff temptation was a Machiavellian punishment, leaving him warring against his own satisfaction. He balled his dominant hand into a fist and bit against abusive knuckles; flexing his muscles for control. Seth struggled for composure, leaning his head against tiles and spare hand pressed open against the wall. On the edge of what could be tolerated no longer, he choked on the winded shock of his last resort. Exhaling a string of hushed profanities, and shaking his head at the rookie behavior, Seth endured the rain of his icy elixir.

Kate was lost to her own wonderment when Seth emerged. A towel wrapped around his waist, legs slick with water, leaving wet footprints on the carpet. His body was toned and tan. Long, muscle-bound arms, a mess of tattoos and track marks. Broad shoulders, masculine frame— his sturdy build looked like the ones Kate saw on TV but never saw on peers. Seth had a man’s body. Differently, completely, to that of a teenager’s. Kate’s face flushed with intrigue, watching in awe of the adult content she wasn’t sure was a hallucination or not. Seth casually grabbed his clothes, dodging her eye-contact and slunk back into the bathroom to piece himself back together. Kate still soaring through layers of reality in disarray. Imagination was a beautiful thing, sometimes. The ugly realities it authorized through rose-tinted glasses, however, was everlasting.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SONG LIST  
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt  
> "Never Tear Us Apart" by: INXS  
> "Love Me the Way I Love You" by: Jerry Vale  
> "Sweet Caroline" by: Neil Diamond  
> "Sleep Walk" by: Santo & Johnny Farina  
> "Girl" by: Davy Jones  
> "America the Beautiful" by: Ray Charles  
> "She's Not There" by: Carlos Santana  
> "Father Figure" by: George Michael  
> "Beggin'" by: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons  
> "Hotel California" by: Gipsy Kings  
> Happy Together" by: Filter  
> "Nights In White Satin" by: The Moody Blues  
> "Something I Can Never Have" by: Nine Inch Nails  
> "Butterfly" by: CrazyTown  
> "Wicked Game" by: Chris Isaacs  
> "I Love You" by: The Bees


	19. Retrograde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Chapters 20 ("SETH/BASTERD") & 21 ("Roughmaking") are pretty appalling. Just consider them Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 Intro to Weird Boners. There isn't any buffer with info dump or backstory either. It's just cut and dry and you're put on the frontlines of all the filth. It only gets worse from there. I'm sure there are some of you who are going to be very not-happy with what goes down, but whatever, I said from the get-go that this was going to be brutal.
> 
> Chapters 22 ("XTC-17) & 23 ("Real McCoy") will follow in suit. They will be posted back-to-back, as well. It's adult material so stay away until you're allowed here. I'll leave the others shrouded in mystery until then.
> 
> ALSO: No one is giving me any feedback, I don't know if there are people still reading this. Someone drop a line and say hi. I'm in a weird place. Kisses.

There was no telling the length of time it took Seth to clean himself up, but stepping back into the arena, he looked brand new.  
"Look at you all gussied up like a real, live bank robber." Kate mused from the confines of her restraints. Seth graced her with a spin mid-strut. "You look elite." She smiled.  
"And you," he shrugged his slacks up slightly, bending to Kate's eye level. "Look like a fairy princess." A ravenous grin swept across his face with guilty intent.  The devil was clean shaven. Dilated eyes, soothed by the cool water, stared deeply into Kate's. His smile was white under lips reddened with the excited hatred woven into his joy. His breathy whisper fell on Kate's exposed neck. "How 'bout some fairy dust to help you fly?" Seth coolly shook a baggie of white powder in the air, collecting its contents at the bottom of its plastic keep. He piled a fair amount onto one of Kate's magazines lying in a heap on the messy table. Divvying the cocaine into even lines with an expert's eye, he ran his middle finger over the ghost pile and cleared it of its disastrous chaos.  
Seth dragged it across his gums. His tongue chased across his teeth. "Snow time." He punned, holding a rolled $100 bill up to Kate’s face—her hands still bound by his ties. Something she hadn’t seemed to question, or quite notice.  
"Well, what does it do?" Kate’s head was tilted, hair draped long in her lap.  
"Makes you feel good. Makes you go fast." Seth's confidence was compelling.  
"I already feel good." Kate logged.  
"I want you to feel everything."  
"What if my heart explodes?" She pressed.  
"It will help level you out."  
"So we can keep having fun." Her statement was dry and seeking.  
"Exactly. Maybe your heart beats a little faster, but that's just a sign of being alive, right?" Seth raised the magazine of toxins to Kate and suited the cash-straw to her nose. She inhaled unquestioningly. Her docile obedience was a testament to Seth’s suave supremacy. His determination was unrelenting and long-awaiting a resolution for their union.  
The combination of both narcotics was not only exceedingly dangerous, but known to experienced users as the expressway to a killed-buzz. Seth was recklessly self-invested and confident his tolerance was a suitable gauge to model Kate’s experience off of.  
The lack of clarity in Kate's thoughts suddenly became painfully apparent. Her heart fluttered with anxiety, and pounded in her chest in a desperate panic. She squinted her eyes, jerking her head from side-to-side, tearing in discomfort.  
"I don't like it-- I don't want it." She coughed the chemical taste from the back of her throat. Her mouth was already so dry from the earlier doses of dreamland-extract, that the cocaine lingered seemingly permanent. It numbed her tongue and cheeks. She felt the cool air from the fan rush into her widened eyes. A tear slid down her rosy cheeks and into Seth’s clutches. He ran it over his gums, teasingly; answering with a throaty laugh rolled in disregard.  
"Party's just startin', your highness." Seth caressed Kate's raven locks with a heavy hand. She didn't like the way it felt to have her neck bend to the weight of his will. She fought to sustain the wavering bliss. Euphoria was hard to maintain and focusing on its capture only hastened its disappearing act. It bowed and weaved arbitrarily, and fell into the echo of a sensation.  
“Speed rounds.” Seth coaxed. “Let’s swap secrets.” Kate’s eyes went to pinpoints. She saw Seth tilt his head in confusion. The cut to black was faster than falling asleep.

**~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~**

_"I just need to get some air, Seth!" She shouted loud and impassioned, fearless and without the faintest notion of consequence._   
  
_Her memory recall had expanded beyond her known capabilities. She felt as if she'd slipped back in time. She fell into the dark corner of her mind that cherished oddball exchanges. Most of which, she shared with Seth._   
  
_"Sneaking off to break hearts, no doubt. Hey, kitten, Church ain't till Sunday." Seth sank a mean-spirited witticism into the part of Kate that harbored guilt for all the people she'd lost. Kyle was an alright guy. He was kind, and he loved her. It was more than she could say for anyone else in her miniscule world._   
_"Does it look like I'm sneaking off.” Kate remembered the angry snap. It rattled Seth’s shoulders and seemed to embarrass him._   
_"You have transcended the appearance of someone sneaking off, and reached the full metamorphosis of its abstract concept. You are the spirit of the night. The restless, the insomniacs, the fugitives and escape artists look to you for safe travels. They seek your guidance in the night, following your ethereal glow by the light of the full-moon--"_   
_"I can see what drew you to a life of crime. The prospect of prison-- it's enticing, if all you've ever wanted was to talk at people compelled by law to hear it." Kate countered._   
_"And yet I escaped to monologue abroad. Shows what you know."_   
_"I know I'll leave the cabin fever to you." Kate had set off to the exit, Seth’s voice chased her._   
  
_"The Iron Bars are equal opportunity, sister, I just hope the law scoops you up before something else does. Night is young though, probably plenty of Big Bads prowling this unholy piñata."_   
_"Concern is touching."_   
_"Concerning touching, touch is concerning." Seth was always so smug and proud of himself when he spoke. He was undeserving of the wit he possessed._   
_"Maybe I will, maybe I want to! Maybe I want to be normal for once, go out dancing, listen to music and meet people!" Kate defended. Her threats empty as Seth’s beer bottle, flying across the room and into a trashcan._   
_"Great, I'll grab my coat."_   
_"I don't need a chaperone, Seth!"_   
_"In a get-up like that, I'm inclined to get you two."_   
_"Why not make it three? Tall, strong, capable and cute. I'm a sucker for blonds and green eyes." Kate taunted._   
_"Extra order of suburban, decoy-gringos, coming up."_   
_"Whatever, Seth. I'll be back later. Don't wait up-- like you said, the night is young."_   
_"And so are you. Too young."_   
_"Christ--" Kate had rarely taken the Lord’s name. Sinking further into the memory, she was have just gotten the hang of it, feeling so uncertain about the inflection and her delivery._   
  
_"You're grounded." Seth simplified._   
_"Groun-- you can't ground me, Seth."_   
_"I can. I will and I have. Just now. It happened. You were there."_   
_"What ever happened to being the ‘"cool uncle" who took in his "estranged niece" after a vague but devastating tragedy struck down her entire family?’"_   
_"Neighbors thought we were screwing."_   
_"You are demented." Kate concluded, stunned by Seth’s lack of propriety. On the outside, it was all so clear he was becoming unhinged. His social decorum, deteriorating, but at least used for good; or so she thought. At second look, her objective perception suggested he was less well-intentioned and more possessive._   
_"There was the matter of a young lady’s honor. One which remains irrefutable still. You are welcome; additionally, don't fuck it up.” Seth’s warning fell with a gruff cough and suppressed burp._  
  
_Kate hung her discomfort on the outskirts of rapid-speed questions, thoughts and recollections. She wondered how long he’d been conditioning her to trust him, most of all._  
  
_"Look, I won't sugarcoat it. The world is a shit storm and we are standing in the eye, schmucks barely clinging to a piece of partially digested, creamed corn. But I tell you what, sweetheart, it’s better than anywhere else in the belly of this big, bastard.” He took a breath, cracking open another bottle. “I know who’s behind us, who’s watching, if we are currently, or will ever be, in the clear. And I get it, the hijinks of youth, they seem pretty important. But they are not exactly the shotgun worthy. Hell, even the backseat is crowded. Call me crazy, but I think they’re somewhere in the trunk, getting pretty well-acquainted with duct tape and small spaces.”_  
  
_“You’re holding my adolescence hostage too?”_   
_“It’s just you, and me now, Kate. That is it. So don’t go talking to me, about hostages or normalcy, or-or, cabin fever, because trust me, Gidget, I got plenty holed up in the trunk too.”_   
_Kate heard the pain in Seth’s voice. She knew it well, but he’d never been both hurt and angry. She, on the other-hand, couldn’t remember the last time she was anything but. “Then you should know how important this is to me, Seth.”_   
_“After the night spits you out, you learn to prioritize. If you don’t, you will wind up with nothing but a bad taste in your mouth and a feeling so dirty and used that no amount of grand standing, hot showers or penance are gonna make you feel right again.” The cocaine taste lingered in her mouth, a reminder of clear and present danger she had once let pass up the chance to kill her. It was bitter, like the performance Seth had delivered, feigning concern. She felt like she was coming true, but searched the lost interactions for anything of importance._  
  
_"Ominous with a hint of threatening." Kate sassed. Even the ecstasy still held strong enough to give Kate a sense of love for herself, and peace for her shortcomings—but when Seth entered the frame in her mind’s eye, she became revolted by him; moreover, the hot-blooded appeal he still garnered._   
_"Schoolgirls were Richie's shot of tequila. Now, I admit, together? He and I were a couple of mean motor scooters. But I don't look out for him anymore. I look out for you. That's my gig. Accept it. I do.”_   
_"You look great for a dead guy, Dad, sorry about the whole staking you thing."_   
_"You wanna chum the waters, little mermaid? Be my guest. Don't come crying to me when some bruiser with a hard-on lays into you--" He had spoken his intentions a lifetime ago and she had regarded him as a joke._   
_"Thanks for the heads up. I'll watch my six." Kate nodded._   
_"I'm trying to make a point, Kate." Seth pressed on. Always._   
_“Don't make me out to be some damsel-in-distress, with a bucket of near-misses, in the process, Seth. You want to take credit for "saving" me? You tell yourself what you have to so you can sleep at night but don’t forget, if it wasn’t for the things you and your crazy brother did, I’d still be able to sleep at night.” Kate had grown so far from herself. She did not hold Seth accountable, not with the weight or strength of the girl she once was._   
  
_“And Richie?”_   
_“And Richie what?” Kate barely had the patience to ask._   
_“You think if I hadn't have walked in on you two that night at the Twister that you'd be able to look me in the eye right now? That you could still hold your head up high and unashamed or even have the audacity to give me the brush off right now? You’d have been just another victim. Broken and left in the dust trying to collect the pieces of what he destroyed.” Seth was growing harsher and crueler with every word. His graphic eye was unsettling but she was too naïve to know it wasn’t appropriate. Seth was never appropriate._   
_“Newsflash, asshole, I’m still in the dust trying to collect pieces of what you both destroyed!”_   
_“You know damn well what I’m talking about and it is not the same. Romanticize your little crush, rewrite every look from the Dewdrop Inn to Hell-on-Earth— do what you have to sleep at night. Just remember, you’re safe in the daylight. Know your truths.” Seth took an impassioned drag from his cigarette. It was such a disgusting habit to acclimate to._   
  
_“Jesus, are you jealous or something? There was nothing there! I wanted to go home! I wanted your guns off our necks! I wanted my family back and you and Richard stole that from me. You’re not taking anything else!” Seth had taken everything from that day on._   
_“Just listen to how you say his name: Richard. Can you even tell anymore if it’s your family you miss—or him?” The cynic’s envy was palpable._   
_“I wasn’t raised to say the things I want to say to you right now. So I’m just gonna walk. You enjoy your solo-drinking, it’s clear you have some things to work out.”_   
_“Kate, Richard was waiting for you to go to him for help. He was going to make you beg.”_   
_“I did beg. Remember? I begged you too.” Kate corrected._   
_“Hey, don’t even—I’m not the one with a mouthful’a Lolita—”_   
_“Just dog shit, nothing out of the ordinary.”_   
_“Admit it, Katie, he coulda’ upped the stakes. Pull you a little bit closer, neck you a little bit deeper. He’d ring your bellybutton like a doorbell from the inside. Can’t un-ring a bell, Kate.” She remembered the boom of his voice, following her to the door before stepping in the way of exit. This should have said something then, but it didn’t. Kate could only imagine what he’d been saying to her in the present that were unheeded warnings._   
  
_“Cornered by your own childish ego, afraid to admit you were in over your head with a man a decade and change too old for you. Hell, you’d have done anything to save your family. And my brother would have obliged—woulda’ fucked the jailbait right out of you.” Seth was too close. “He’d have left you somewhere-- alone, broken, and bleeding… still covered in him. Just long enough for you to hear rounds pop off in the back of your daddy’s skull. You don’t want to know what he’d have done to Scott.” He was breathing heavy, Kate was terrified. This was pivotal. She remembered his decline, she remembered all the warnings of his plummet into madness._   
  
_“Why do you think I held onto the keys, huh, Kate? For shits and gigs? A power-trip? I did it for you. Not your father or your shithead take-out-brother. I did it for the young, Preacher’s daughter who was just too Goddamn pure to let anything happen to and too Goddamn naïve to know something could. For fucks sake, the only reason I left with you in the first place was because I knew Richie was still alive. Had he died, I’d have left you behind. I would have left with a clear fucking conscience, knowing you were better off – rid of this Gecko as promised.” Seth finished in a gasp. He was not sadistic, he was not aroused or laden with suggestion. He was frustrated with the circumstances, guilt and reminder of everything that ever went wrong._   
  
_Seth, a blind, junkyard mutt: target practice for the weak hand still learning how to grip stones for throwing. Kate was the gentlest hand ever paralyzed by the mongrel’s maul. He reminded her of the pain she felt, fear she knew and loss she endured. He could howl for a lifetime about the rabid wolf drawing nearer, but Kate’s stones would soar until the beast was dead. Her hatred left her jaded, unwilling to deviate from the source of her malice. Perhaps out of self-preservation, perhaps to atone, Seth remained on guard. Because a blind watchdog was better than no watchdog. And, well, maybe he just didn’t want anyone else to finish her off but him._   
  
_“No time like the present, Seth.” Kate offered him a way out. She should have offered herself one. Then again, what was the point? He had staked his claim long before Mexico, long before the Twister, long before anything had become of their ill-fated collision. Kate scurried through the fragmented memories for an answer to her anxieties. Was Seth a Martyr or maniac? She doubted she’d ever find out. But she wasn’t going to die without trying._

  
**~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~**

Seth snapped his fingers in front of Kate’s face. “Anybody home? Where’d you go?” He explored her expressions carefully. “Weak sea legs.” Seth commented on her brief disassociation into what could have been death, but was the seated collapse of a faint instead. “I run a tight ship. That’s not gonna cut it on the high seas.” He was playful but the subtext of his words was a very real threat. She would tolerate him, or she’d pay the price.  
   
“Thinking of secrets.” Kate ensnared. “I have mine, do you have yours?”  
“And then some.” Seth charmed. Kate was pensive, listless, too stoned to bear the chaos looming overhead, but grateful she had a cavalry of mayhem all her own.  
“A long, long time ago. You said that… you said once, I would have done anything to gain my family’s freedom. You said, had ‘Richie upped the stakes’ I would have let him—”  
“’fuck the jailbait right outta’ you.’” Seth’s words began to overlap hers. “I remember. What about it?” Seth didn’t lead with any sarcasm or bluffed cool.  
“Well, I just figure, if I’m still on the Reaper’s list, then there’s no time like the present. May as well weigh in on the matter.”  
“I’m riveted. Do, go on.” Seth was washed pale with a contempt she’d never seen before.  
   
“What would have happened if you hadn’t walked in on our lip-lock at the Titty Twister?” Kate repeated the question Seth had asked her in the second round. Her words moved slowly in the air, feeding into his insecurities and envy. “I think I woulda’… gotten religion.” Kate was vicious in her delivery. Seth had mocked her, her family, Kyle and everything to infinity and from the beyond. If she had any tools left, it was to sully the cargo before he got the chance. Deconstruction and self-preservation never felt so liberating. Then again, she didn’t know what it felt like to be liberated. Before the Geckos, she never needed to and it had been a long, arduous journey in shackles ever since.  
   
Seth saw red. Kate was taunting him and he knew it. His memory was so blasted-to-shit by all the drugs, he had trouble recalling how long they’d been adversaries. The feud had always taken a backseat, however, to the unspoken respect for the bigger, meaner things in the world that neither of them could ever be. The common enemy made them allies in the loosest of terms. Their fates were in knots, tangled around one another’s, in a tuck-of-war, strangling them both.  
   
Seth stood up straight. He peered down at Kate, admiring her spirt and honored to crush it. He circled around the back of her chair, dragging it to the center of the room. If she kicked, he didn’t want to risk his stash being lost to a 360 degree scatter.  
   
Kate pulled her wrists from the chair, she lunged forward, her legs wild in flight. She had no regrets for playing her provocative hand. She had plenty more up her sleeve. She did overlook the restraints. Alone with the psycho was a tough enough spot to be in without them. She grew more and more grateful, however, of the feel-good tonic still percolating in her body is strange waves. Everything was heightened, everything was at its most extreme. It wasn’t the blissful obliviousness anymore, it was the ecstasy of finally being awake. The duality of her nature was a warzone she was proud to leave bloody. Seth could have his fill and choke on it.  
   
“I’ve already read your diary.” Seth swiped at his nose. His eyes were mad and ambitious. They cased all the best things to steal, and coveted every hidden inch he hadn’t gotten to yet. “Read mine.”  
   
Seth pulled his strapping arms from his the tailored blazer, casually laying it on a nearby table. His eyes locked on Kate’s, as he came to his knees in front of her own. He was half-way through unbuttoning his left sleeve. His fingers working unsupervised, jerking the fabric to a tight scroll at the bend of his arm. “Dear Diary,” Seth allowed himself an easy chuckle and began hiking his other sleeve up. “Today, I played with my best girl, Katie. We did lots of drugs and made each other bleed.” Seth rested his palms reverently on Kate’s bare knees. She fought the tremors collecting under his touch.  
“We shared secrets,” Seth slid his hands higher up Kate’s thighs in a slow crawl. “We took a stroll down Memory Lane,” Kate was torn between wanting more and needing it. Ecstasy was problematic that way, and Seth knew she was fighting every fiber of her being to keep from pleading for more. He rounded his hands to the side of her thighs, still covered by her dress and slid them up the length of her thighs. “I can’t wait until we’re naked.” Kate languished in the heart of the chaos. His hands gliding on top of her thighs. He didn’t expose one inch of her porcelain skin. He didn’t need to.  
   
Seth pulled his strong hands back down her thighs in a slow drag. Wide palms and long fingers, draped over either side, a testament to his size in contrast to hers. He smiled, arriving back at her knees. Kate was seeing double. She marveled at Seth who, despite being a despicable human being, was better looking than most. She knew that was true, even if the sensations his touch elicited were fueled by the Love Drug. It was hard not to be charmed by him. Especially in such a position as the one she was in; where following the rules of an illusion, could just save her life.  
   
“I always sign my name. It’s important to credit yourself for your truths.” Seth was rapping his fingers on her knees. He spoke coolly, a heavy whisper falling into her lap. “But first,” he held up both index fingers. “If you scream— well, no need to get colorful, you know what I’ll do.” Kate’s eyes rose in suspicion. “Open.” Seth jerked his head at her knees. Kate didn’t dare move. He let out a lighthearted laugh and ran his fingers over his eyelids in mock-disbelief.  
“I wouldn’t use a chainsaw to spread butter, but I might spread butter on the handle for someone who would.” His riddles were bullshit. “I’m not going to complicate something easy. If you’re the sort who will, I might ensure you make it Goddamn disastrous.” Seth’s coy grin was a chilling and all too ambiguous to challenge.  
   
“What game is this, Seth?” Kate’s voice was calm and assured.  
“Open.” Velvet. His touch and voice were pure velvet. Kate relaxed, easing her knees from a bone crushing vice. Seth took in the rest of the way, easing her legs apart. He kept his gaze fixed on hers, a proper, perverse gentleman. “Remember that thing I said about screaming?” Kate nodded.  
“Could be educational—”  
“Get on with it.”  
Kate looked away, fairly certain his pursuits were one-dimensional. She readied herself for a violation, the gravity of which she could not yet grasp emotionally, and physically, but feared she would be betrayed by.  
   
Kate's eyes bolted wide in shock. A sharp, dragging torture shot through her body. She felt blood gather between her legs, and panicked in her restraints, suffocating with fright. A protesting scream was stifled by the shock and shock alone. It was the saving grace that kept the taste of Seth out of her mouth for the time being. Still, her body shook and seared at the apex of her thighs. Kate swallowed the agony, exhaling vowels trapped in her throat. Each muffled cry, a need lost to the frenzied of fleeing her unendurable anguish. Kate gritted her teeth, jerked her wrists, chaffing them against the tie until they bled. She all but kicked Seth from the nest between her knees when he held her hips steady in the chair and made tiny circles with the pads of his thumbs on her naked hipbones.  
   
The throbbing pain was disorienting and somehow alien from herself. She felt her head bob in a circle on her shoulders, her posture braced for the blackout but it never came. Seth steadied her body, shh'ing her panic from a magnificent roar to a slightly less dedicated howl that reduced the chances of being forced to greet Seth’s cock with her throat.  
   
Kate’s chest was heaving, her lap was warm and knees shook. Seth was panting with excitement. He wrapped his massive grip around her waist. He confirmed his desires in the manner by which he squeezed the whole of her lower back with one palm. It was sturdy and propositioned the illusion of safety be set into motion. Over her dead body.  
   
Kate was railing against the torment. Waves of pain coursed through every delicate length and secret of her body. Her body trembled, a silent beg for mercy or relief, or both. Her one knee jumped rapidly; bouncing to the pounding of her chest, fighting off the unforgiving ache that flared through her wounded flesh. Kate honed in on every sensation that had begun wafting over her in disarray. Whatever mock-support he filled the room with was little more than a sweaty, exhale of cruelties catering to his own proud masculinity. A sudden cry erupted, unwilling to hide any longer. She couldn’t hear a word of it.

**_‘What has he done to me?’ ****_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why doesn't anyone ever drop me a line? Is anyone even still reading this thing?
> 
> **SONG LIST**  
>  "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt  
> "Never Tear Us Apart" by: INXS  
> "Love Me the Way I Love You" by: Jerry Vale  
> "Sweet Caroline" by: Neil Diamond  
> "Sleep Walk" by: Santo & Johnny Farina  
> "Girl" by: Davy Jones  
> "America the Beautiful" by: Ray Charles  
> "She's Not There" by: Carlos Santana  
> "Father Figure" by: George Michael  
> "Beggin'" by: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons  
> "Hotel California" by: Gipsy Kings  
> "Happy Together" by: Filter  
> "Nights In White Satin" by: The Moody Blues  
> "Something I Can Never Have" by: Nine Inch Nails  
> "Butterfly" by: CrazyTown  
> "Wicked Game" by: Chris Isaacs  
> "I Love You" by: The Bees  
> "Big White Cloud" by: John Cale"Daisy" by: Brand New  
> "Blue Velvet" by: Bobby Vinton  
> "Happy Together" by: Filter  
> "Goodbye Horses" by: Q Lazarus


	20. SETH/BASTERD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So incredibly sorry for the delay. Last minute lengthy travels took hold. Enjoy, God be with you all.

Seth licked the full of his palm. Blood ran between his fingers and down the back of his hand. He wiped his mouth with it, smearing red across his face like war paint. He was radiating heat, fury, sex. His eyes were black spheres refusing to let go of Kate. He had claimed more than just her flesh. Seeing her rest in an endorphin-fueled haze, the subsiding pain, reducing to a sore dullness, and giving rise to the inevitable pleasure, he felt his anatomy swell. The suggestion of his empowered physique, barely guarded by his tailored slacks and leather belt with a platinum buckle, became the least of Kate’s fears. Seth’s touch provoked a startling spasm of warmth in Kate’s core. Her nerves were raw from the tampering of her sanity. Splitting at the hands of Seth was a horrific, lewd violation she feared she’d never recover from. Kate was reeling from the experience; full with fear, and out of breath. Her panting became a mouth-watering opera to Seth.

Kate was shaking. She was feeling too much. No amount of drugs or alcohol was going to quell the searing pain. Everything that should never have been, was heightened and echoing through her body.

“I know an awful lot about being a bad man, Miss Fuller.” Seth sucked the taste of Kate from his lips with a smack that jolted Kate to attention. “I was never a good man. I was good at being a bad one, and, bad at being a good one. But ya’ know, that never bothered me. I never aspired to be some, Jesus Ghandi King Jr.” Seth reached his hand to the girl’s face, brushing hair from her eyes and caressing down her tear-stained cheeks. “You wanna know how I know I’m not stuck in the labyrinth, Kate Cakes?” Kate shook violently; she didn’t know if it was the drugs, the shock, the pain or the whole Goddamn cocktail. “Because of you.” Seth chuckled under his breath. A wide grin, teeth discolored with her blood, menacing her with a joke she didn’t get. “Maze knows what we are inside. If I were still inside? You wouldn’t be here. See, so, I need you, Kate. I need you as a reminder that I got out—even if I’m the only one. You’re a fucking postcard, a keychain, a chipped mug with a misspelled name. Just some trinket I picked up on the way out to remind me of where I’d been.”

Seth’s words meant nothing to Kate but he felt them cold himself. He was trying to make a romantic declaration, and Kate was fucking it up. “I love you, Kate. I do. I love you as much as I need you and I despise how much that is.” Seth stood up, towering over Kate. A beam of light shot Kate in the eye. It was a reflection of a straight razor he carried to his tongue and licked clean. “You don’t mind, do you? I know how much you like your bloodsuckers.” Seth sauntered across the room to mess around with the music. Artie Shaw’s “Nightmare” had been playing a few seconds too long and broke his concentration. He slid the blade down his back pocket, razor side out.

“Is that your confession?” Kate’s voice trembled. Seth spun around, as if shocked to hear another voice other than his own. “That you hate me because you’re afraid of being stuck in some stupid fucking tunnel!” Seth seemed disappointed—hurt even.  
“No, Kate. I’m afraid of the tombs. I’m terrified of _you_. Don’t you get it?”  
“I have never fucking understood you! Get these off of me! You fu—” Kate struggled, barely pausing to wince against the tug of her restraints.  
“Easy there, tiger. I got love for you, and that terrifies me. If I didn’t, I could be stuck down there. And sometimes, Hell, I wish I was.”  
“That’s not ‘love’ you psychopath!” Kate spat furiously.  
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I do fuckin’ hate you somethin’ nasty too. What can I say? I’m a complex man.”  
“You’re an animal—take these off, let me out!” Kate couldn’t bring herself to look in her lap. She saw her once precious dress soaked through with blood. She blinked her eyes rapidly trying to remain conscious.

Seth fidgeted with his belt and a sound deep in his throat rolled as he adjusted the length of his slacks. “You know, I took that little magazine quiz of yours.” Seth pretended to be interested in the cheap motel art hanging crooked on the wall.

“It was enlightening. You’re not supposed to mark the pages though, Kate. Results could find their way into the hands of some pretty nefarious people.” Kate struggled in her chair, blood dripping in loud drops onto the sopping carpet beneath her. “That the sort of stuff you fill your mind with now? _‘What type of sex best suits your personality?’_ that’s not exactly Psalms, is it?” Seth crowded her space so slowly, she hadn’t even realized he’d been moving. “You wanted this.” He hissed, inches from Kate’s face.

Kate jutted forward. She collided the top of her head with Seth’s nose. There was an audible crunch, as Seth fell backward. His shoulders landing against the table, knocking over a water bottle and flooding his narcotics on display. Kate couldn’t make out whatever profane terminology he erupted with. His hands were clenched tightly around his nose. They filled with blood in an instant and began spilling down his arms, from between his fingers. Kate felt like a woman at last.

Seth peered up at the wild thing bound to the chair. His shoulders bunched and eyes watered. They were both positive his nose was broken, but only one of them found it funny. Seth’s laugh was muffled and gurgling in a cupped pool of blood. His cheeks were on fire. He wasn’t angry, he was aroused.   
“I guess Cosmo really knows what they’re talkin’ about.” When he pulled his hands from his face, a fountain of dark blood fell from seemingly nowhere. The corners of his eyes began to swell and were a minutes from going pink to purple. “Want to know what I got?” Seth teased. He spat to his side, cautious not to get any near Kate. “I think you’ll get a real kick out of it.”  
“Go to Hell.” Kate responded. She kicked her leg out long, reaching for his smirk. Seth caught her by the ankle. She twisted a bit to free herself from his grasp but the pain was excruciating.  
“I got _‘Passionate.’_ ” Seth mocked her proudly. “And boy, howdy—am I passionate now.”

 Seth pushed himself to his knees. He held Kate’s ankle against his side, wrapping his arm under it and smearing his blood up the length of her leg. He pulled nearer her parted knees. Kate was more angry than scared. After all, she had enjoyed head-butting him.

 “Makes sense, more I think of it. You, Richie, me—you’re a tricky cat, kitten.” Seth rested a heavy hand on the middle of her resting thigh to keep her from kneeing him and doing any more damage to his beauty. “ _‘You’re adventurous, playful and enjoy a challenge. You’re aggressive nature may get you in trouble in the real world, but makes for a sexy competition in the bedroom.’_ I memorized it. _‘You’re eager to please but don’t subscribe to any old conservative routine. You make love the hard way,’_ Katie, Katie, Katie… _‘The bedroom is a great place for you to express yourself and show your partner you’re fearless, confident and sexy! Results: Rough sex.’_ I love a good twist, don’t you?” Seth’s mouth was burrowed under her blood-soaked dress before she could object. 

Kate felt out of control again. She wanted to break Seth’s neck with her legs like they do in the movies but his grasp was too strong and her pain was too severe. She could feel the warmth of his tongue travel her inner thigh. He nipped gently, kissing on thigh while massaging the other with a firm grip.

Kate let out a pained scream. Seth’s hands tightened around her flesh cruelly. She couldn’t breathe. His tongue hadn’t ventured beyond where it had before, and from what she could gather, she was still “decent.” The pain, however, was not. It was fire and knives. Kate let out half a cry before Seth’s hand was around her throat. He emerged, more blood than skin. He was stoic and shook his head slowly from side to side. “I told you not to scream.”

Seth pulled out the straight razor, “I can make you smile.” He brandished the tool before Kate’s fearful eyes. Her breath was heavy, chest was heaving. She wanted to speak or cry, scream and throw-up. She sealed her lips shut, moaning in her mouth. She couldn’t tell if she was on the brink of begging for death or mercy. She couldn’t bring herself to give Seth the satisfaction of having either.

“I tell you what—I’m gonna cut you outta that chair. But I wanna hear your _‘moment.’_ ” Seth finished.  
“Moment? What moment?” Kate shook her head in confusion and panic.  
“The moment you knew.” Seth twirled the blade too close to her face.

“Knew what!”  
“You know.”  
“No, I don’t—”  
“Don’t play me, Kate. I told you mine, I want yours.” Seth spoke matter-of-factly.  
“I don’t love you, Seth. I never—I could never—I’ve never despised someone as much as I do you. I didn’t even know what hate was until I met you.” Seth feigned heartbreak before breaking into a Cheshire grin.

“The moment you realized _you_ were terrified of _me_.” Seth was stern and a severity in his tone said she’d better know the correct answer

Kate hung on a moment. She couldn’t think back to a time when Seth wasn’t some sort of threat to her but she’d never considered herself flatly **“terrified”** of the maniac.

“I wasn’t raised to fear the Devil.” Seth grabbed a handful of Kate’s hair and held her head steady. He kneed his way between her legs. His belt glistening inches from her face.

“Try again.” He said. Something inside Kate snapped, she looked up at the entitled bastard, she saw her hair bunched in a knot around his fingers and wrist. The pain didn’t bother her anymore; not when she could go out taking a few swings.

“When Richie left.”

Kate had spoken plainly. She did her best to sound honest, and maybe she was. Seth released her hair, untangling his digits slowly. He patted it back into place and stepped back to the table of destroyed drugs. Kate heard him laugh, watching him shake his hanging head. Hands clasped on his hips, he was ready with a lit cigarette in record time.

“Never gave me my penance.” Seth reminded.

“Untie me first.” She countered. Seth nodded, swiftly making his way behind her and cutting the ties from her bleeding wrists.

“Looks sore.” He noted.

“Give me the blade.” Kate was cold and obvious but Seth didn’t notice or care enough to object.  
“Simple enough.”  
“Not even close.” Kate was going to use everything against him, including their stupid game.

The blade landed in Kate’s lap. She jerked forward, hands shaking. She quickly snatched it, a death-grip locking it in her right hand. Seth was back to playing the brooding DJ. "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley came through the speakers. Kate was equal parts unimpressed and annoyed. Seth had no right to sulk. Kate was struggling to pull herself up from the chair. Every movement was agony. She couldn’t bring herself to look at what he had done to her, she could tell it was bad. She just wanted to stand upright again—she figured she didn’t have much time left to spend on her feet.

She was right.

Seth looked over his shoulder and saw Kate struggling. Perhaps out of pity or sheer annoyance, he lunged toward her, grabbing her by the elbows just before she fell back into the chair again. She stood upright before his smirk  . He kept a stride’s distance between them. He was careful not to grip or claw. His rules of war were warped. Kate pulled herself out from his touch. She inhaled quickly, nearly collapsing again.

Seth caught Kate’s waist and effortlessly guided her to the foot of the bed to sit. Before Kate had time to be flooded by panic, he’d made himself scarce across the room. Kate felt just safe enough to shift farther up the bed to reach a pillow. She just wanted to hug something and feel safe. But she wasn’t safe. She could ring her garment out and paint the room with a fresh coat of sinister with all the blood it had collected. Kate pulled the case off the pillow. It was by no means clean, but it was better than nothing.

Seth watched Kate, his heart racing. He was a silence of malice. Kate had begun to lift her dress’s hem to assess the damage when Seth caught himself unable to look upon her again. It was a momentary lapse of human decency and he was driven mad by it. It didn’t matter what he did or said, he’d never feel he was good enough to see her exposed. Even under her dress, his eyes had been closed. It wasn’t just the seduction, it was a compulsion. It didn’t matter if he was all she had. It didn’t matter if he had her bound from finding something else. Seth would never feel he was worthy to genuinely look at Kate. Even if his name was carved into her body.

And it was.

**‘S E T H’** in deep, jagged tears, had been sliced into Kate’s upper thigh.

*******  
  
Tunnel vision. Kate’s sights narrowed to near blindness. Her head hung low and her jaw followed. Mouth agape, eyes wide and locked in disbelief, Kate bore down at the mutilation at the peak of her upper right thigh. Seth had carved into her as if she were on the menu. His lines were jagged and angry. They were deep and split wide and raw. She could see the levels of skin he’d cut through. The blade burrowed deep-down past the superficial thresholds and straight through to the layers of fatty tissue and parts of her she didn’t even know were under her skin. The damage was irreparable. Nothing but the grace of God would ever be able to fix what had been done and if Mexico was lacking in anything, it was God.

Seth postured away from Kate, rattling around a drawer for more uppers and downers. He kept a sly eye in his peripheral, awaiting Kate’s shriek, sobs, or whatever she could reach to throw at him. There was a vague sense of fear he found hard to square in his core and took to shifting his weight between either legs. He wasn’t afraid she’d get the upper-hand and blitz him, so much as the fear of rejection when she inevitably snapped out of her shock and damned him for what he had done.

The blood had begun to clot, slowing the widening spread of blood around where she sat. She had endured plenty at Seth’s hands, but somehow, seeing the puddles of blood which connected with a sad crimson trail from one to the other, Kate finally understood Seth. He had vandalized her. He tore into her flesh; he had marked her as his own like a young lover would carve initials into an oak. He was waiting for her to, in a language only he would understand, consent to him. Seth didn’t want Kate for himself, he wanted her to want him for herself.

Seth had been anticipating some audible reaction from Kate. It did not come. Kate knew she was one mood-swing away from being a corpse. Seth, however, had no idea she had every intention to take him down with her.

“Seth…” Kate purred. Seth turned abruptly. He was vulnerable in the dangerous sort of way. As if, every interaction he had with her was as deadly or sanctifying as the other. Love, hate, sex, murder, blood, water… it was all one to him, and it was all polluted.

Seth grunted and manufactured a disinterested aura. “Could you wrap my leg for me, please?” Kate’s request was meek and barely above a whisper. Her voice was a few octaves higher than usual but began raspy in her throat. It was hard to digest, for Seth, who couldn’t tell if she was a woman or a girl when standing in front of him, let alone by the tone of a sultry voice he was sure he’d never heard before.

“You wouldn’t paint a veil over the Mona Lisa.” He countered.

“You might if she were ugly.” It would have been an insult had Kate not pulled herself higher up the bed. She had her wounded leg bent at the knee. The other lay long atop the mattress. If Seth took a step six inches to the left, he could see Kate’s glory peeking behind the hem of her dress, draped between her legs.

“What are you doing Kate?” Seth pulled himself from the gutter of his mind. Kate nonchalantly waved her hand, her elbow still resting back on the bed to keep her propped up. A strap slid off her shoulder. Her collarbones had his paw prints all over them. He was euphoric and eager, all the while determined to destroy that which made him so.

“I can’t do it by myself. My wrists hurt. I’m not strong enough to pull it tight.” She beguiled him with her helplessness mingled with pain. Seth’s sadistic tendencies were forcing themselves to the forefront of his mind. His body got hot. He salivated. There was a knot in his chest that Kate tugged at, tangling him with her charm. “I don’t want to bleed out before winning this game.” She finished.

Kate beckoned him like a siren. His brain couldn’t focus and he didn’t want it to. Seth drew nearer, each step slower than the last, as if walking the plank. The familiar longing tightened in his groin. He worshiped her from the foot of the bed. Seth had thought of all the vile, nasty things he’d do to her when he got the chance. But nothing felt more natural than his urge to shed his clothes and climb between her legs, grip her thighs and suck on her neck while he rocked the full length into her. He imagined her body entwined with his and the sounds she’d make. He wondered if she’d bite his shoulder at the fullness of him inside her. He’d never been with a virgin before--- Suddenly jerking his neck to snap back to attention, Seth had all but surrendered to a brutal passion before Kate threw the pillowcase at his chest.

“Most cultures would consider that a surrender.” He taunted, taking hold of her ankle as he knelt one knee on the bed. He kept his other foot firmly planted on the ground: in reality, where it belonged. His fingers took advantage of every inch them climbed up her leg, however. They found their home behind her knee and Kate forced her body to relax to his unnatural touch. He felt her leg go limp in his hand.

Quickly, Seth tore the pillow case in half. It impressed Kate, as it would anyone, except Seth who could only see the two halves as perfect restraints. A barely-heard moan escaped Kate’s lips. She bit down in haste, as his eyes found hers. He wrapped his handiwork with the cloth, the first layer rather loose and it almost immediately became soaked through with blood. The second he pulled tight—too tight. Kate erupted in agony. She lunged forward to push Seth away but he’d already stepped back. She caught her breath and moved toward the edge of the bed, hanging her feet just above the carpet.

“Take your shirt off, Seth.” Kate commanded.  
“You’re not really my type.” Seth lied; arms crossed, eyes analytical. Kate stood as best she could and Seth refrained from helping any further. He loved hearing her wince between stifled moans. She always put on a brave face, and he always loved it. Seth felt her pain as pleasure: stiffening and begging for release with each exhaled vowel.

“I forgot, you’re scared of me.” Kate tormented.  
“That my penance?” He asked with a dramatic eye-roll.  
“Almost.” She sized him up, her eyes perilous. He’d never felt more out of control in his life and the unspoken scrutiny was maddening. “Sit down.” Kate was cool, gesturing for Seth to sit on the foot of the bed.

“I know this game.” Seth grinned.  
“I kinda doubt that.”

Seth had barely been sitting before Kate tore open his button down shirt. Designer threads and buttons flying across the room. His instinct was to be pissed—and he was—but he had little room to be. “It was too nice for you anyway.”  
“Allow me.” Seth halted Kate from further destruction of his wardrobe, and pulled his undershirt over his broad shoulders. He was dark and alluring, even as a bloody mess. His physique intimidated Kate. No matter how many times she saw him bare-chested—even nude, she knew she’d never stop being in awe of his beauty, at least.

Poorly bandaged and body radiating in pain, Kate stood at Seth’s knees. Seth shifted in the chair. He did little to hide his smirking grin, serving only to test Kate’s nature. She couldn’t stand up straight but it didn’t stop her from fiercely dragging the blade into Seth. He hissed before tossing his head back and erupting in laughter. She should have cut his throat. She should have castrated him. Maybe she would.

Tearing through Seth’s chest was no easy task. The blood made Kate’s stomach squirm but she’d never felt more in control in her life, and she liked that.

“Climb on, Kate.” Seth’s taunt was a command Kate could deny only as long as it took Seth to hoist her hips into his lap. She felt his bulging masculinity press against her decency, but felt no shame for the sensation it elicited. She straddled him, carving deep, nasty wounds into his chest. Blood trailed down his sculpted body and made it hard for her to keep track of the flesh she’d torn through and the flesh she hadn’t gotten to yet.

Seth felt the horrific pain of the blade. He was high, but human; even still, it was invigorating. He never had more reason to hate the girl, though he couldn't. He shuddered with desire, his shaft rearing hot and hard against the feel of her. She rocked her body innocently, positioning herself to better mutilate him. The muscles in the back of his legs and stomach flexed, his strong arms fought against his corrupt longing to throw her back on the mattress and finish her off. Seth ran his hands up the side of her thighs, holding her ever so firmly against the rage in his slacks. He watched as the crimson flooded her cheeks, focusing on the sensation he knew was overcoming her. It was a fierce flare of yearning. A desire brought about by the cleverness of an impassioned criminal. It was instinctual now. He moved his hips against her, she tightened her thighs around his and began a slow grind atop him.

“Bastard…” Kate shuddered, exhaling hot against Seth’s searing chest. She dropped the blade on the blood-wrecked carpet. Her hands fell to Seth’s, still firmly grasping her thighs. Seth didn’t need to look down to know that’s exactly what she’d carved into him. He wasn’t good enough for her name. He didn’t care. His heart beat dangerously fast in tandem with Kate’s. They locked hateful eyes.

Kate's dress was soaked through with both of their blood. Seth could see her nipples perked under the fabric. She played on, biting her bottom lip as he groaned. Ripples of pleasure became her. Riding in a mimic slow grind she'd learned from him. Seth bunched the skirt up around her hips, charged with a beckoning excitement neither could control. She molded the apex of her mound around his rigid mast, massaging a pleasure she'd never known. A need for more urged her to stoke the growing heat. Her knees shook, the lean muscles of his abdomen glistened with blood. She ran her hands up the blood and dug her nails into his shoulders. There was a frenzied race of torment they we both slave to.

Seth, nearly maddened by her rolling hips, was all consumed by the yearning for her final surrender. The silken touch of her feminine hold was warm and wet through the fabric of his pants. Seth's jaw clenched, his body pulsating under hears. IT was torturous, activating and lathered the promise of release.

“You put your test results to the test… let me do what I do best, Kate.” Seth coaxed. Kate had won the stand-off. She smirked, hastening her movements. She leaned her breasts against his bleeding frame. She would own him.

“Do you know why I always wanted to wait for marriage?” Kate began to confess. Seth’s eyes were as longing as his body. “I wanted my first time to be with a man who’d cum inside me.” Her voice was breathy, lips grazing his ear, sending a stiff shiver down his spine. His primal destruction was audible. A hungry groan crashed down her dress, his head colliding into the crook of her neck. A rabid fury of teeth and tongue overwhelmed any remaining sensibilities.

Seth mauled at Kate’s neck; and she let him.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> []SONG LIST[]  
> _____________  
> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt  
> "Never Tear Us Apart" by: INXS  
> "Love Me the Way I Love You" by: Jerry Vale  
> "Sweet Caroline" by: Neil Diamond  
> "Sleep Walk" by: Santo & Johnny Farina  
> "Girl" by: Davy Jones  
> "America the Beautiful" by: Ray Charles  
> "She's Not There" by: Carlos Santana  
> "Father Figure" by: George Michael  
> "Beggin'" by: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons  
> "Hotel California" by: Gipsy Kings  
> "Happy Together" by: Filter  
> "Nights In White Satin" by: The Moody Blues  
> "Something I Can Never Have" by: Nine Inch Nails  
> "Butterfly" by: CrazyTown  
> "Wicked Game" by: Chris Isaacs  
> "I Love You" by: The Bees  
> "Big White Cloud" by: John Cale"Daisy" by: Brand New  
> "Blue Velvet" by: Bobby Vinton  
> "Happy Together" by: Filter  
> "Goodbye Horses" by: Q Lazarus  
> "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" by: Frankie Valli  
> "Nightmare" by: Artie Shaw  
> "Heartbreak Hotel" by: Elvis Presley  
> "Sealed with A Kiss" by: Bobby Hyland  
> "White Rabbit" by: Mayssa Karaa  
> "Killing Strangers" by: Marilyn Manson feat. Tyler Bates


	21. Roughmaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's almost all over folks...

Good girls don't talk like that. In another life, Seth would have considered Kate's uncharacteristic remark suspicious. In another life, Seth also could have been the fucking Pope. Arms draped over Seth's shoulders, locking behind his neck, kept him from realizing this. His mouth broke from hers. "Take my belt off." Neither of them could tell if this was part of Penance, but it was certainly Kate’s responsibility.

Seth's mouth hung agape, what remained of a smirk quickly overwhelmed by Kate's touch. Kate's hands fell to Seth's lap, her fingers worked the buckle with frantic but expert navigation. With a quick jerk she pulled it from around his waist and tossed it aside, resting her palms bloody on his frame. In another life, Kate would have strangled him with it and used the fine leather as a purse strap. In another life, Kate could have been the fucking Pope too.

Seth’s eyes fixed on her, his sneer, infectious and hungry, was a new look for the girl. Delicate hands fell from Seth’s broad shoulders in a slow trail down his heaving chest. Each finger pressing against the gruesome inscription mutilating him. She teased his abdomen, dragging her nails down his hipbones. She was a vision: lips bloody, hands curiously confident, flesh plump with a swollen wisdom. She was passion. She was his passion.

Without provocation, Kate dragged the zipper of his pants down, reinforcing the fervor rising between them. His lust was searing, bucking under her quivering femininity.

Seth grabbed hold of Kate's arching back, pulling her relentless, swaying body against his. Cushioned against her curves, the hardness of his primitive need throbbed with urgency. Her rhythm was all consuming and any resistance that either had held onto quickly blurred into a pleasure too sweet to deny. Seth's breathing grew ragged, coaxing Kate to flick her tongue against his. He clutched the back of her hair, tenderly assaulting her mouth with his once more. Their tongues swirled and teased, daring the other to slide it elsewhere.

Seth groaned hungrily, lost in the secret of their damned embrace. Kate was shackled to his lust, caught in a vicious battle against her body's desire to fuck him and her heart's need to kill him. “When will you kill me, Seth?”

Seth’s voice was raspy and desperate in an attempt to confess the only things he ever truly needed or wanted to say. Kate’s promising touch distracted his ego.  
“I have no intention of living in a world without you.” Her undulating straddle compelled his unconstrained grunts to escape his throat and send shivers down her spine. “It’d be my suicide.”

Kate was proud and electrified by the awakening overwhelming her compromised consent. Seth’s hands advanced around her bruised body with an animalistic demand befitting his severe nature. His appetites grew dangerous and hot—bloody hands groped at Kate’s breasts, claiming her pert nipples with persuasive fingertips. She cocked her head back, her raven hair entangled by blood and sweat draped down her back. She rocked her hips deeper, nearly lost to the potency of brimming fulfillment. A dire compulsion halted her momentum. Her unmerciful bliss echoed a bewitching feigned protest. Her breathy exhale against Seth's neck was a burning perversion that stoked his aggression.

“Would you kill for me?” She fought the pulsating surge of pleasure, resisting both her own ravenous fixations and Seth's. She purred. His eyes darted villainously at Kate's quaking thighs. His distress was incredulously sinister, struggling to muzzle his ruthless alternative.  
“I have.” Seth spoke matter-of-factly in two shaky breaths. Kate smiled, shifting on his lap.  She arced her form, avoiding his eyes and lapping a trickle of blood from his collar bone. Her hands busy in his lap.

“Would you do it again?” Kate’s wicked intrigues were criminal whispers toying with Seth’s devious spirit.  
“Yes—” Seth bit her shoulder, a spasm of desire permeating his body. He hadn’t noticed her hand slip artfully down his slacks until it was wrapped around his rigid cock. Her hands were soft hand and movements shameless. She rolled her thumb around the tip, slowly tempting his endurance with a gentle stroke. “Who would you kill for me?” Kate watched Seth’s body respond to her touch. She let him guide her motions with his moans. There was a pause of heavy exhales and stifled grunts. Kate slowed her hand cruelly. A heated drive swept him from euphoria to agony. “Anyone” Seth answered hastily. The onslaught of edging release had made him her puppet. She ran her fingers the length of his engorged cock, quickly stealing a glance at his endowment.  Her body flushed with lust. She bit against his neck, sucking a kiss from his salty flesh. “—fuck—everyone.” Seth corrected, gripping Kate’s ass and jolting her hands back to pace.

“Tell me three truths.” Kate commanded his confession. She kept a fair grip on his cock, stroking him slower and slower until he answered her. He moaned through bit lip and clenched jaw. “Ones I need to hear, as much as you need to say.”

Seth sucked a mouthful of Kate in as she pulled away. His thoughts were crooked and backwards. Kate was torture, but he loved every piece of her. He spoke without thinking but it wouldn't have made a difference.

"I never meant for this. I never meant for any of it-- the bad stuff-- the--" Kate gripped his manhood tightly, angry, halting his words.

"Don't you dare.”

"I didn't. Not like this, Kate." Seth's tone was pleading. Some part of him sought forgiveness above release.

There was a sadness overwhelming Kate's stomach, leaving it in knots and disappointment. He'd made it so easy for her to hate him up until then. Truth be told, if he had ever spoken a genuine word to her before, she didn’t know it. What she knew, was that she was tired. She was tired of the games, tired of the chase, tired of the warfare. If he didn't do her in soon, she'd do it herself; but she wouldn't be going alone.

"You're a liar." She spat back the slow certainty with the command of a woman much older and wiser than she. Seth blinked his eyes at the change in her voice. The severity of her serpentine posture was terrifying and sexy. What had she become? When did this happen?

 _"What have I done…."_ He barely spoke and Kate wasn't sure she heard his words correctly. In a second's death, it didn't matter to her anymore. She had resolved to the promise she'd made herself. She was going to end this.

 Kate leaned in closely. Her soft but bruised cheek brushed against Seth's 5 o'clock shadow with a scratch she couldn't help but find her body delighted to hear and feel.

"You _knew_ what would happen." She whispered. Her words tickling Seth's throat, driving blood up his neck and tightening his shoulders in want. Seth felt her hand relinquish the anger of her grasp on his pained erection. Her sweeping motions were welcome once more. Seth was helpless, throbbing in her hands and stifling his groans with a cocked chin and clenched jaw. "I'm sorry." He stumbled between gasps.

"You _knew_ what you were doing." She dragged her free hand down the left side of his neck. Her nails splintered into smoldering lines down his fevered skin. His tattoos felt electric once more. Seth was tinder beneath her. His body moved instinctively with Kate's, thrusting against the soothing hold she charmed. Kate's skin and its warmth, and scent, coupled in his mouth with the taste of her, igniting an unbridled deliriousness, as euphoric as it was bestial.    

"Because you're not _just_ a bastard, Seth." Kate continued, her words vibrating into Seth's right ear. Seth did little to resist, shaking in his seat, breathless and condemned. His demand grew with urgency, with each slick jerk.  Seth watched Kate's flushed face, heat radiating from her and into him. Seth's muscles tensed, unbearable spasms of pleasure threatening to leave him spent but grateful. "You're a **fucking** bastard."

Kate flicked her tongue against Seth's earlobe, stinging it with a quick nip. Seth shuddered, tightening his abdomen, as Kate pulled her hand away from his determined cock. This was different than before. He had displeased Kate greatly with his "truths" and she'd withdrawn her promise from his slacks, in a double-cross he'd have ended with a smirk. The pressured pleasure was agonizing. Seth could only comprehend the sudden end to his enjoyment as a cruel power play. Even as he processed, writhing under Kate’s thighs, scanning her face for some sort of humanity, he knew her brand of child’s play was beyond reasoning with. 

Kate was still bleeding buckets. Grinding on Seth's uncompromising shaft had only propelled her to hasten her movements. Her heart was pounding. The sensation between her legs was unfairly persuasive. A primal infatuation she'd never known before was punishing the shameless exploitation of both their manic bodies. The heat was all consuming. Something deep inside fluttered with excite and weakened her knees. She could feel the delight of her contracting walls, wet with desire and restlessly flexing for more. The girl's taste for man had left her with wicked needs and a realized but abridged will to withstand her longing.

Kate leaned back, placing her palms on Seth's knees. Her straddle was tight enough for Seth to feel her every quiver. His mast no longer gyrating but suffering a blinding famine that left him rabid with temptation. The urgency was rapidly enflaming his insatiable craving and devouring the last remaining threads of his humanity. His sights were lost to tunnels. His temperature had risen and the pain he felt in his unsatisfied manhood was nowhere compared to the pain of being one-upped by Sister Christian and some heavy petting.

Seth found his dominant hand clasped in a passionate hold around Kate's thin neck. His long fingers wrapping almost the full way around. A necklace of bruised knuckles and cigarette ash. He didn't cut off her air supply. He knew the moment he made contact with her throat she was no longer afraid of him. He slid his hand up the back of her neck, balling his fingers in a tangle of her hair and yanking her head backwards. Her chest rose and fell, knees shook and eyes were electric. He angled her face to his, locking eyes. "Do you even know what a truth is, Seth Gecko?" Kate exhaled in a defiant giggle. She made a mockery of him and he knew that clearly now.

"I won't ask." Seth stated plainly and with all the truth of the Gospel. He let go of her hair, pulling her back to him. His lap was a saddle and his movements were out of her control. "I won't beg." He pressed the small of her back inward, holding her navel arched against his and rolled her hips into his hard bulge, pulsating with pleasure. "I won't bargain." Seth's strength held her ass in a rotating pressure in his lap. Kate shuddered at the tension building between their bodies. His words were law and true. Seth pressed his lips against Kate's ear, whispering, "Can you feel how easy this is for me?"

There was barely time for Kate's eyes to dilate before she felt him at the entrance of her sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt  
> "Never Tear Us Apart" by: INXS  
> "Love Me the Way I Love You" by: Jerry Vale  
> "Sweet Caroline" by: Neil Diamond  
> "Sleep Walk" by: Santo & Johnny Farina  
> "Girl" by: Davy Jones  
> "America the Beautiful" by: Ray Charles  
> "She's Not There" by: Carlos Santana  
> "Father Figure" by: George Michael  
> "Beggin'" by: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons  
> "Hotel California" by: Gipsy Kings  
> "Happy Together" by: Filter  
> "Nights In White Satin" by: The Moody Blues  
> "Something I Can Never Have" by: Nine Inch Nails  
> "Butterfly" by: CrazyTown  
> "Wicked Game" by: Chris Isaacs  
> "I Love You" by: The Bees  
> "Big White Cloud" by: John Cale"Daisy" by: Brand New  
> "Blue Velvet" by: Bobby Vinton  
> "Goodbye Horses" by: Q Lazarus  
> "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" by: Frankie Valli  
> "Nightmare" by: Artie Shaw  
> "Heartbreak Hotel" by: Elvis Presley  
> "Sealed with A Kiss" by: Bobby Hyland  
> "White Rabbit" by: Mayssa Karaa  
> "Killing Strangers" by: Marilyn Manson feat. Tyler Bates  
> "Fever" by: The Cramps  
> "Time To Say Goodbye" by: Katherine Jenkins  
> "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" by: Leonard Cohen  
> "Only the Lonely" by: Roy Orbison


	22. XTC-17 Magazine

The need to rectify her actions and those of Seth had been put to bed. She did not feel defeated or fearful. It wasn't the drugs or blood loss. She knew the duality of the situation but could not allow herself to go further with Seth with hate in her heart. It was perhaps a kindness that her mind fell to the mercy of the moment and not the pains of the past. It was too much to bear and there was too much at stake. Losing the battle to win the war is crushing but if she didn't have humility, she'd have shame. Kate had a history of muted ingenuity but a delicate constitution; morally and otherwise. She could stomach violence now. Because she lived it. She knew it was real and the destruction it garnered. She really had learned so much with Seth. Being righteous was no way to live. It was an outrageous way to die.

***

Seth rushed to a stand; one arm coaxed a thigh around his waist while the other gripped Kate's ass. He was abrupt and deliberate, and spared no force. He kissed her hard. It was demanding and merciless. Kate flinched in pain, moaning down his throat and securing her leg-lock around him. His tongue was on a wild crusade she wrestled against. They both swallowed the copper taste of the other's blood. It was bitter but wanted. Seth's bare chest bled against her destroyed dress. It was held together by little more than a cosmic inside joke she wasn't a part of. She felt entirely alive where she was. She was petrified; feeling like a small child home alone for the first time. Hoisted by Seth's determined body, her slender fingers in a tangle on the back of his neck, she couldn't imagine a place on Earth more structured for her than in knots with him.

Seth's strapping build was slick with sweat and blood, and flexed under her touch. Her thighs tensed around him, rolling in primal haste against his waist. Her body frantically stroking her desire against his stiffness. He let out a raspy moan of pleasure, clutching her ass firmly. In a flash of clarity, Kate found herself trapped in the present. To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy. This was not her crime, and it would not be her guilt. It was a natural justice. Kate could not see how easy it was for Seth. She could feel it.

Seth blindly ambled to the foot of the bed with Kate in arms. The air conditioner blew cold on the back of her knees, her hem waving like a surrendered flag. He felt the chill run up her back and shift to him. He waited patiently between her marred thighs. Her supple skin felt his hardness and it was warm and longed for. His barbarous and bloodthirsty temper took pause. Lifting one knee on the bed, he laid Kate down gingerly. As if, to break her now, would be a big, damn shame. He married her knees to the mattress with his own. Barely resting himself between her legs before pulling the front of the sundress into mess of tightly gripped linen. He stripped the fabric off from around her waist in a slick tear.  He was enchanted by the sight of her. Kate was a novel beauty with flushing skin that didn't crawl when he touched her. Seth felt the tremble of his own need burning within. No longer at war with himself to look at Kate anymore. No, he'd lost that war to himself already and a part of him knew he'd pay the price later.

Seth groaned into her neck. His deep sound vibrated down her body and her nipples perked in arousal. She blushed and stifled a rogue moan with a shaky, heavy exhale in the dip of his throat. Kissing was Russian roulette: thrilling but doomed. They traded desire and frustration, back and forth on their tongues, but only ever tasting fear. Shuddering between panting, fused lips. His mass pressed against her, he was so more aware of her body than she--somehow making him the vulnerable one. He dragged his nails down her thighs, spreading her knees farther apart. His fingers ran up the silken length of her inner thigh. She was slick with heat and wetness, the feel of which shuddered threatening heights of pleasure through his body. He ran one hand up her stomach and between her breasts, thumbing her pert nipples; his other shook free his trousers. Kate's shoulders stiffened abruptly. The feel of his bare thighs crowning hers was just alien enough to nearly halt the lotus-eating.

Seth eagerly took hold of her chin, distracting her with a kiss that was deceivingly chaste. He loomed over her. His throbbing cock and lean muscles tightened in restraint, as he tapered the severity of his urgency-- lulling Kate back to the sanctuary of her naivety. Seth slid his hand between her legs, skillfully mapping her sex with his fingers. He teased her lips apart, skimming her clitoris cruelly. He reeled in wicked delight knowing Kate's prolonged agony would only sweeten. Ripples of pleasure rose over her. She purred beneath him, raising her back and gyrating against clever hands that wouldn't give in to Kate's maddening invitations. Seth's focus on her was a delicious torture for them both. He was preparing her for him. Two fingers massaging her bud in tandem with his tongue on her neck. Heated elation trembled deep within her. His power radiated pleasure. Seth's eyes smoldered, his every touch enticing release. He flicked his tongue across her nipple, sliding a steady finger inside her. She was tight and it beckoned more of him. He encouraged her from the inside, delving slowly and gently with his digit. Kate hadn't recoiled, rather batted her eyes in a rapturous bewilderment. Seth's cock swelled, pulsating with desire. He cushioned it against Kate's thigh. Involuntary spasms driving the pleasure of their euphoria to sweeping insanity, compelling him to buck against her like a novice lover.

Stroking up against the soft of her sex, Kate lifted tossed head back suddenly. A melodic exhale rolled from her throat and flooded Seth's body with demand. He hauled in a breath, his own body tensing against the feel of her. His fingers were agile, one moving rhythmically within the hot, wet walls of Kate's virgin sex, and his thumb circling her clit. Seth watched Kate writhe beneath him, driving her to heights of pleasure she'd never known. Her knees shook against his rippling sides, while her hips bucked under him stirring in subjugation.  Slow-burn kisses, sucked and bit his neck, sending his carnal appetites to a standstill. He locked eyes with Kate, fighting the heavy rise and fall of his heaving chest. Urging her to give in to the rapture of their friction with his glare. She nudged a sweet peck on his split lips.

"Tell me you hate me." Kate's voice was breathy and desperate. Seth was sucker punched with a pang of shock that made him want to take his hands off the girl.

"I hate you. I hate you, please." She repeated. Shock lasted less than a fraction of a second, ending when Kate rolled her hips against Seth's halted frisk. He pulled himself up on an elbow, pressing a second finger inside her and dragging it along the roof of her sex. She moaned, digging her nails into Seth's shoulders, pulling him closer. Seth was silent, his fingers hastened, drenched in Kate's arousal, his mouth-watered and blood boiled. "Fuck…" Kate moaned, sinking her teeth into his neck, sucking the sweat from his flesh. She stifled a high pitched cry of ecstasy with his flesh in her mouth.

"I don't believe you." His guttural tone aroused fury in both of them but only Seth had control. "Make me believe you."

"I despise you. You disgust me." Kate spoke through shuddered breaths, Seth's fingers still strumming on her clit to keep her on the line.

"Nah-- you don't hate me." His pressure lessened and Kate grew harsh with frustration.

"I hate you so Goddamn much."

"How much?" Seth drove her back to the peak of climax. "Tell me."

"I fucking hate you, Seth Gecko." He rounded the apex of her womanhood with his manhood. The heat radiating from her welcoming depths was coaxing him to take her hard and fast. He charted his hips carefully, feeling Kate tremble once more, but not from bliss-- from something broken but longing. Kate dragged her thumb across his bottom lip, opening his mouth. He saw a tear roll down her flushed face. "Only you hate you more." She spat in his open mouth.

Kate had throttled his deliberate masculine authority. He bore down into her eyes, licking his lips and swallowing the wad of spit she'd gifted him. She'd given no explicit orders, but Seth would have complied in pulling himself off her in that one instant. The silence was no place to catch their breath. A tension was rising in the room. An attraction that defied and perplexed them both. Seth wiped the trail Kate's solitary tear through narrowed eyes. Arching her back to better accept him, Kate tightened her bare knees around Seth's naked hips. His eyes winced in understanding, calmly sliding an open palm under her neck. He filled the space between them slowly, kissing her forehead.

"You are perfection, Kate Fuller."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Angel of the Morning" by: Juice Newton  
> "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by: Donovan  
> "Hey, Good Lookin'" by: Hank Williams  
> "Superstar" by: Sonic Youth  
> "Teach Your Children Well" by: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young  
> "You Don't Own Me" by: Leslie Gore  
> "We've Only Just Begun" by: The Carpenters  
> "Blue Bayou" by: Linda Ronstadt  
> "Never Tear Us Apart" by: INXS  
> "Love Me the Way I Love You" by: Jerry Vale  
> "Sweet Caroline" by: Neil Diamond  
> "Sleep Walk" by: Santo & Johnny Farina  
> "Girl" by: Davy Jones  
> "America the Beautiful" by: Ray Charles  
> "She's Not There" by: Carlos Santana  
> "Father Figure" by: George Michael  
> "Beggin'" by: Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons  
> "Hotel California" by: Gipsy Kings  
> "Happy Together" by: Filter  
> "Nights In White Satin" by: The Moody Blues  
> "Something I Can Never Have" by: Nine Inch Nails  
> "Butterfly" by: CrazyTown  
> "Wicked Game" by: Chris Isaacs  
> "I Love You" by: The Bees  
> "Big White Cloud" by: John Cale  
> "Daisy" by: Brand New  
> "Blue Velvet" by: Bobby Vinton  
> "Goodbye Horses" by: Q Lazarus  
> "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" by: Frankie Valli  
> "Nightmare" by: Artie Shaw  
> "Heartbreak Hotel" by: Elvis Presley  
> "Sealed with A Kiss" by: Bobby Hyland  
> "White Rabbit" by: Mayssa Karaa  
> "Killing Strangers" by: Marilyn Manson feat. Tyler Bates  
> "Fever" by: The Cramps  
> "Time To Say Goodbye" by: Katherine Jenkins  
> "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" by: Leonard Cohen  
> "Only the Lonely" by: Roy Orbison  
> "Bad Romance" by: Jared Leto  
> "Please Stay" by: The Cryin' Shames  
> "I Didn't Mean to Hurt You" by: Spiritualized


End file.
